


Wasp Harvest

by Overlithe



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Body Horror, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Horror, Marvel Universe Big Bang 2014, Physical Abuse, Psychological Horror, Thriller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2014-11-18
Packaged: 2018-02-25 11:56:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 27
Words: 92,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2620862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Overlithe/pseuds/Overlithe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>‘We are going to do great things together.’</em><br/>1947: Bucky Barnes wakes up to a metal arm and Arnim Zola’s voice.<br/>1979: Alexander Pierce, newly-minted member of Hydra, takes over a now-useless asset tucked away in a vault.<br/>2014: The master has a mission for the soldier.<br/>This is everything that happens in between.</p><p>Or: Bucky Barnes, disassembled. The Winter Soldier, assembled. Horror/thriller. MCU with a few shout-outs to the comics. Gen, but you can read some Bucky/Steve and a tiny little bit of Bucky/Nat into it if you’d like.</p><p>Written for <a href="http://marvel-bang.livejournal.com"><strong>Marvel Big Bang 2014</strong></a>.<br/>Awesome accompanying artwork by <strong>dark_roast</strong>: <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2515286">Artwork @ AO3</a></p><p>Detailed warnings inside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Room

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:** Moderately graphic violence, character death (as stated or implied in the MCU canon), psychological and body horror. Please note that this fic contains substantial, realistic depictions of severe mental and physical abuse, abusive relationships, depersonalisation techniques, and other topics that are likely to be disturbing and/or triggering for some readers, and reader discretion is _strongly_ advised. There are also references to actual historical tragedies/atrocities, but these are all very brief and mentioned purely as part of the historical background of the fic. Please PM or email me (or drop me a comment) if you’d like more detailed warnings/content descriptions.
> 
>  **Author’s Note:** I am greatly indebted to my beta/partner-in-crime **muffinbitch** ; this fic wouldn’t have been possible without her patient hand-holding, commentary, suggestions, and corrections. Many thanks too to my amazing artist **dark_roast** , who not only created some incredible illustrations but is also insightful, funny, and a blast to work with. **brezcu** provided a great deal of help with plot untangling and characterisation. Finally, a big thank you to the **marvel_bang** mods for all their hard work into putting this challenge together and making it run smoothly.
> 
> Before we go in, I think I should mention that in this fic I wanted to explore some aspects of abusive relationships which I feel are particularly important as it comes to MCU!Bucky and his interactions with Pierce (and Zola and his other handlers to a lesser extent) but which are often not understood well, given short shrift, or simply not talked about much, both in fiction in general and in real life. So I feel I should clarify before we go in that everything in this story that touches on those topics and isn’t science fiction is either something I researched extensively, experienced directly, or both.
> 
> With that out of the way, on to the fic!

 

[   
_Art by dark_roast_ ](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/marvel_bang_2014/works/2515286)

 

** Wasp Harvest **

+++++++

 

> He is solid; immovable, iron-willed. He showed me one day his killing bottle. I'm imprisoned in it. Fluttering against the glass. Because I can see through it I still think I can escape. I have hope. But it's all an illusion.  
> A thick round wall of glass.  
> —John Fowles, _The Collector_  
> 

**Part I: _The Killing Jar_**

light

snow dead air

white flurry white

whiteout

 

+++

**1\. Room**

He sensed the pain before he felt it, a heavy pressure above his right temple. Then he tried to blink, but his eyelids were gummy with sleep. He didn’t feel like he’d been sleeping, though. He felt as though someone had knocked him out cold and he was just now rejoining the world of the living. Still fuzzy, he raised his hand to his forehead to check for damage.

There was a rattle of metal. He could tell it was the clink of a chain, even with his head stuffed with cotton, and that snapped him awake. He scrambled up, eyes open, and nearly fell onto a concrete floor. For a second he thought he was in—

_blood_

—an orange room, until he noticed it was only a sweeping light somewhere in the ceiling, splashing the walls like the beacon of a lighthouse.

Then he saw it.

He hadn’t noticed it at first, hadn’t even felt it, but that was no surprise; his whole body felt numb. But now he was wide awake, hot needle jabbing away at his head and all, and there was this… _thing_ hanging from his left sleeve, encasing his arm. He touched the metal with two fingertips, tentative, as though it might bite if he nudged it awake. It looked and felt like a metal cover, and other than the joints it was moulded so tightly to his arm it could have been painted on. The light sweeping the room turned the metal from steel-grey to red and back again.

He ran his fingers down the metal, almost to where his left hand was balled into a tight fist, then up, looking for some kind of latch. The metal cover went up into the sleeve, and he tugged at the gown’s collar, trying to find the spot where the cover ended.

Where the skin of his shoulder had been, there was now a seam of flesh and steel, puckered and angry. He had to twist his head down and sideways to see it fully, and this close the ridges of scar tissue—pink and white and purple—looked like an alien landscape. He was sure he could _smell_ them too, that hospital stink of bleach and sickness and carbolic soap, and—

Cold sweat pooling under leather straps. Whirr of saw on bone, smoke, that smell, Jesus, _that fucking smell_.

He bolted to his feet, his cuffed right wrist trailing the chain behind him. _Get a hold of yourself, Barnes_.

He ran his right hand over his face, as though that would help with the headache, which by now felt like someone had decked him with a crowbar, or with the clutch of nausea in his stomach. Still, he could hear himself think again, which was good, because that was some dynamite advice he’d just given himself, and they weren’t going to get out of here if he started flapping about like a headless chicken.

_They_. Him and—which of the others? He paced the room as much as the chain allowed, studying what could be seen under the sweeps of red-orange light. He knew the drill. _James Buchanan Barnes. Sergeant. 32557038_. You just had to repeat it to yourself until there wasn’t any room to say anything else, no matter what they did—

_needles electricity_

—to you. _James Buchanan Barnes. Sergeant. 32557038_. The room was twelve by twelve feet, maybe ten feet high, the floor and walls bare. With his right hand, he tried to move the cot, but it was bolted to the floor, and there was a metal grille on the ceiling, probably to stop him from punching the light out.

There had to be a door too, somewhere. If they’d just wanted to kill him, a bullet to the head was much quicker and cheaper. When you wanted to keep prisoners alive, you had to water and feed them once in a while, which meant someone was going to drop by sooner or later. In the meantime, he just had to keep his head screwed on straight. _James Buchanan Barnes. Sergeant. 32557038_. The chain wasn’t long enough for him to reach two of the corners, but he could still look for some kind of hidden hinge or panel in the parts of the walls he could touch. He kneeled, joints groaning a little—he must look a real picture in this johnny gown they’d put him in—and felt the concrete with his good hand. There was no give anywhere, but he hadn’t been expecting it anyway, considering this cell was…

_Where?_

He knew, somehow, that he was underground, but the last thing he remembered was huddling around a map with the rest of the Commandos. A map of—was it Switzerland? No, Hydra didn’t care for neutrality, but that hadn’t been it. Austria? Bavaria? His headache turned into an iron band around his temples. Behind his eyelids the black lines of borders and blue ink rivers and little flags jumbled together. He stood up, the chain growing taut behind him with a clink of metal, and rubbed his forehead.

There was now. There was then, before the map, before (the things after) Azzano, before he’d been shot at for the first time, before he shot back, before the war. Between the two sets of things there was a hole, as though someone had cut out a chunk of time with a pair of scissors. Pressing at the hole’s edges just made his head fuzzier and his headache sharper.

It didn’t matter. _James Buchanan Barnes. Sergeant. 32557038._ That was what was supposed to happen, a shell would blow up underneath you at midnight and all you remembered later was having woken up that morning, like when that very thing had happened to—

‘Sergeant Barnes.’

He spun around so fast the chain pinning his wrist rattled. For a split second he was sure he saw a shape crouching in the shadows left by the spinning light. But no, his cell was empty.

‘Sergeant Barnes.’ The voice was a little louder now, but not more insistent. It was tinny, so it had to be coming from some kind of speaker, even though Bucky hadn’t noticed one in his sweep of the cell.

‘To your left, Sergeant Barnes,’ the voice said, with a note of amusement.

Cold darted inside Bucky’s chest. The voice could see him. _His_ voice.

Of course it was _his_ voice. Had he ever expected things to turn out differently, really? What kind of POW camp stuck you in a hospital gown? His body moved towards the left corner of the cell, as far as the chain would let him.

‘Come a little closer, Sergeant. Things will be, ah’—a brief pause—‘tiresome if we cannot hear each other.’

In between the pain hammering away at his head and the red-orange light, Bucky’s eyesight was starting to turn black at the edges, but after a few moments he found the speaker. No wonder he hadn’t seen it the first time around: it was tucked away in a corner, too far away for him to reach properly with the chain leashing him, so low he would have to kneel or crouch to speak into it. He got as far as the chain would let him, his right arm stretched behind him, and went down on one knee.

‘Fuck off right to hell, Zola,’ he said. He’d managed to make his voice not shake, not even a little. ‘You manage to catch that? I can say it again louder, if you’d like.’

A metallic chuckle. Bucky could hear the faintest hiss of static behind it. ‘Very amusing. I’m glad we did no damage to your sense of humour, Sergeant.’

_We_. No news there, of course, it wasn’t as though the bastard would have been working all by his lonesome. Still, it must mean this was another Hydra base, as Bucky had suspected. Not good news, but not bad news, either; he just had to remember that the last time he’d been chained up in one of these, it had all ended with the place going up in smoke. _Just don’t say another goddamn word_.

For a few seconds, there was only the hum of static, then a little cough. ‘I am sorry, Sergeant Barnes. A pity we did not first meet under better circumstances. But I think you will be able to put all that behind you soon.’

‘Christ.’ The word slipped out almost without him noticing it. He felt a tug in his left shoulder. When he looked down he saw, despite his headache and the poor light, that the hand had unclenched, and the palm was dotted with rivets. They had to have been bolted straight through flesh and bone.

He jumped to his feet. There was a whirr from deep in the metal thing they had welded to his arm, but he barely heard it. Everything narrowed down to the chain, the walls boxing him in, the red-tinged air filling up his lungs. He pulled on the cuff until it gouged a white crescent in the flesh of his wrist. _Get a grip. Get a grip. Get a grip_.

Behind him, Zola spoke again. ‘Did he ever notice it, your Captain?’

‘What?’ His heart still hammered his ribcage.

The voice from the speaker made a little annoyed _tsk_. Bucky’s memories of that other room were the colour of fog, which was good, because he didn’t think about it if he could help it. There was something sharp, though: in the middle of everything, of chemicals and injections and wires, after handling him like a slab of dead meat some assistant had deposited on his operating table, Zola had addressed him directly for the first time, and told him he was Swiss. Not German. _Biel, to be precise. Very interesting history_. He had been cleaning his glasses as he spoke.

Even with the speaker’s distortion, Zola sounded like that again. As though they were two acquaintances discussing the weather, or what to order at a diner. ‘Come now, Sergeant Barnes. I think we both know what I mean, no? After you left me so abruptly, didn’t you find yourself a—a changed man?’ He let out a brief laugh at that, as though he’d just made a terribly witty joke and wanted to mark the occasion. ‘Did you manage to keep it a secret?’ Zola went on. ‘Not very observant, these friends of yours.’

Bucky didn’t answer. Instead he padded back to the cot and sat down on the mattress. ‘Just do whatever you came here to do and shut up,’ he said, after the light had swept the room a few more times. It was starting to fill his eyesight with sunspots, big splotches of red and black.

‘I’m not going to do anything to you, Sergeant.’ With the speaker hidden in the shadows, the voice seemed to drip from the walls. ‘Not without your… cooperation.’

_Yeah, good luck with that_.

‘I know it must be hard to accept that it will happen, Sergeant Barnes. Do you know what day it is?’

_Don’t you have a secretary for that, Zola?_ He managed to stop the words from spilling out. February—no, March, it had to be March. He was pressing at the edges of the hole again, and it was like having someone’s name on the tip of your tongue. All his thoughts felt rusty.

March, though. Definitely March. April at the latest. He couldn’t have been out for very long. No more than a day or so. Longer than that and you weren’t out, you were in a coma.

Or dead.

‘Today is the fourteenth of June 1947.’

Bucky ignored him. Maybe the guy believed what he was saying, maybe he didn’t, but it had been obvious since Zola had turned the speaker on and opened his mouth that Bucky wasn’t just dealing with bad guys, he was dealing with _crazy_ , and there wasn’t much you could rely on when you were dealing with crazy. Zola might decide to rearrange his organs, or do nothing, or just leave him in here and forget all about him. There was just one thing you could do, and that was get away.

Bucky looked at the ceiling, where the metal grille shielded the spinning light. He might not have found a door, but maybe he didn’t have to. If he pried the grille out, maybe there would be a vent, or maybe he could short-circuit something important enough for them to open the cell and send in someone to repair it. At the very least he could break that goddamned light. He rubbed his temple again, almost without—

_in real trouble here_

—noticing it.

‘I apologise for the headache.’ Zola’s voice again, crackling through the speaker. ‘It is a side-effect of cryostasis. Hopefully we will perfect the process with time. You understand, I hope. We have very much been moving by trial and errors, since as it happens only someone with your… unique characteristics can survive the procedure without substantial damage. So we don’t have many test subjects, as you can imagine!’

_Damage_. That word again. God, what if the hole in his memories—

He stilled, his bones suddenly as brittle and cold as spun glass. _We don’t have many test subjects_. Not _we only have one test subject_.

What if Steve was also here?

Some part of him wanted to think that was impossible, but Bucky knew that was nonsense. Just because Steve’s body had finally caught up with what was inside, that didn’t make him invincible. And he would be the one Zola really wanted. So while the good doctor was here chatting with his consolation prize and Bucky had been mooning over himself as though the cell were made out of mirrors, maybe Steve was strapped to a table, surrounded by white-coated monsters with scalpels and saws and pincers.

‘Oh, but I should explain it…’ Zola droned on. Bucky had to bite his tongue to stop himself from yelling, from running to the speaker and demanding to know where Steve was. _Stupid, Barnes. That would be stupid_. That would get him nothing, and would probably just make them hurt Steve more. He had to keep his trap shut for once. He caught the thread of Zola’s words again. ‘… from the Greek _cryo_ , which means cold. You have been on ice, Sergeant, to put it crudely. Of course, the technology is far more advanced than that which allows us to freeze and thaw, say, a beefsteak. No expense has been spared, but then you are infinitely more valuable than something the housewife picks from an icebox for dinner. Incidentally, how do you like your new arm, Sergeant?’

Bucky’s gaze dropped to the metal sleeve on his left arm. That’s all it was, wasn’t it? Even though the arm still felt numb, much, much number than the rest of his body, the only sensation a faint buzz of pins and needles.

‘No? Well, you will grow greatly used to it in time, I am sure. You will find it very useful for all the things we will do together.’

‘You’re crazy,’ Bucky said. It was only a whisper—his mouth was dry—but still Zola heard it. Bucky pictured a shoal of microphones hidden in the shadows, hanging from the ceiling like bats.

‘It is all right, Sergeant Barnes,’ Zola said, not unkindly. ‘I wouldn’t expect you to understand right from the start. But you will complete the procedure very soon. Become what you are supposed to be. You will ask us to do it, even.’

When Bucky spoke, it was nearly a shout. ‘Go to hell.’

‘Oh, it does not matter what I do. Only what you do, Sergeant. You have to sleep sometime, after all.’

Silence. Then a click, and Bucky realised that he was no longer picking up on the soft hiss of static. The speaker had been turned off. He sat in the quiet, not moving, the only sounds his breath and, almost too faint for even him to hear, his heartbeat.

The light went out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The line “A pity we did not first meet under better circumstances” is taken with only slight changes from the _Cold Case_ episode _Our Boy is Back_ (season 1, episode 3), where it was something the perp repeatedly said to his victims… I know that, in the comics, Bucky lost all his memories after falling off the plane. However, in the MCU, judging from the fact that he still has memories of the fall off the train etc even after goodness knows how many ECT/ECS sessions, it seems far more likely that any memory loss would be much smaller. I also wanted to go with a realistic (more or less, given I Can’t Believe It’s Not Super-Soldier Serum and all) portrayal of a traumatic brain injury, so Bucky has lost the memories of the weeks before his fall, which took place on the 5th May 1945, but everything else is (for now) still intact. We never get Bucky’s full serial number in the movies, only the first five digits, so I took the last three digits from the CA:TFA comic book adaptation.


	2. Ganzfeld

**2\. Ganzfeld**

Three days. He held out for three days. He would have that to take to his grave, at least.

***

At first he was sure the idiots had just done him a huge favour. He startled a little when Zola or whoever turned the light off—there could be anything in there with him—but he soon quietened. The room was as dark as it got, and that way they wouldn’t be able to see him, or what he did.

He reached for the coils of chain lying on the cot beside him. Zola might be crazy, but he was right about Bucky being a changed man. Once he’d got away from the restraints and the stink of chloroform he had begun to notice things. The way he could see and hear things now, or even smell them sometimes, so that he heard a twig break under an enemy’s boot or the distant rumble of an engine before any of the other Commandos did. The way he could slow down his heart, his breathing, sometimes—he’d swear—even time itself, so that he’d gone from a hell of a shot to someone who seemed to have the eye and luck of the devil. The way he became stronger at times, without real rhyme or reason, so once he’d almost bent a truck’s steering wheel in half when he’d been wrestling a Hydra goon near the Danish border.

_Now would be a good time for that._

His fingers slid up the chain’s links to the eye bolt embedded in the wall. He felt the metal for a moment, guiding himself by touch. With the light gone he could think better too, his headache a little more bearable. His thoughts were sharper. Not glass-sharp, but sharper.

He closed his fist around the length of chain just below the bolt and gave it an experimental tug. The metal groaned a little, the squeak louder in the dark, but didn’t budge. That was OK. He wasn’t expecting it to, not yet.

 _Come on._ He stood up, hand still on the chain, and braced his feet against the floor as he wrapped a few loops of the chain around his hand. _Nice an’ easy_. He made sure to give the chain a little slack, focusing on the task as though it were an unfamiliar rifle he had to load in the dark. Once he was done, he gave the chain a tug, stopped, felt for the edge of the cot with one foot, then started pulling again. _Come on_. The metal let out a low-pitched whine as he yanked it and the edged of the bed dug into his foot through the thin mattress, but he kept pulling, until his tendons burned and his right arm felt like it was going to pop right out of of its socket. The chain links dug into the flesh and bones of his hand. He was sure the skin had already ripped. _Come on. Fuck!_

His left foot slipped. His knee struck the edge of the cot so hard a red starburst filled his sight and he almost went sprawling across the floor. For a few seconds everything swayed, even in the dark. Then the world settled back into place. He could think again.

_On your feet, soldier._

Slowly, muscles burning, he straightened up and felt around for the chain. Most of it had slipped out of his hand.

The bolt was still buried in the wall. Hadn’t even budged.

He had to stop himself from swearing out loud. They might not be able to see him, but he bet they were probably listening, and better not give the bastards anything if he could help it. He kneeled on the cot and groped at the wall and the bolt again, as though he might find that he was mistaken and he’d ripped it apart after all.

Seeing with your fingers was difficult, but he was sure the first link of the chain was bent, and that there were cracks in the concrete, around the rivets fixing the bolt to the wall. Faint, but he could feel them.

All right. Try again. Keep going, like he had for the past two years, barely needing sleep, and he wasn’t sure that was down to the things after Azzano. Maybe it was just the war, running on fumes, marching all night, ambushing an armed convoy after a few hours’ rest with icy mud seeping into everything. Maybe it was following Steve, because who wouldn’t follow him, Brooklyn runt or star-spangled super soldier, to hell itself?

Maybe he was just a stubborn jerk. That was probably it.

He climbed out of the cot. His knee still throbbed, but at least it was a distraction from the headache. Leverage, that’s what he needed. Maybe if he used one of the cot’s legs? They were bolted to the floor, so he could use one as a kind of pulley. He just had to crawl under the bed…

_Did he ever notice it, your Captain?_

_You could try the other arm._

He kicked the thoughts away. Christ, this was not the time to wonder about what Zola had or hadn’t meant, as though he’d said it with flowers. He had to figure out—

_But you could try the other arm._

‘Yeah, fine.’ The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. By now the dark swam with red and yellow splotches and he closed his eyes. Not like he was seeing much anyway.

He _could_ try the other arm. The thought made him a little queasy—it wasn’t just a cover, he knew that, he wasn’t _that_ stupid, these assholes wouldn’t have encased his arm in steel or whatever it was because they’d run out of baby shoes to bronze. They must have done some kind of surgery—

_blood snow_

—on it, melded flesh and metal together like those science experiments Stark would sometimes go on about. He called it biological robotics, which had always struck Bucky as inadvertently funny, as though Stark had meant to sound fancy like a college professor and had instead landed on a pulp about Martians zapping farmers with ray guns.

He opened his eyes again and looked down at the spot where his left arm had to be. Some part of him expected the thing to start glowing red or make beeping noises, but he couldn’t even see the faintest of outlines. Taking care of Mom and Steve he’d learned a few things, and dressing wounds the best he could in the field he’d learned a lot more, enough to know how to picture the stuff that was usually sealed under the skin. He imagined copper wire wrapped around blood vessels, metal clamps biting on sinew and white slivers of bone. In his mind the thing attached to his arm was vaguely spider-like, full of hair-thin legs.

_So what?_

He hadn’t told anyone about the things after Azzano, not even Steve, because who wanted to relive the time when they’d been splayed out and prodded like a guinea pig, but if the results helped, they helped. He’d have time to moan about it later, over a drink or three, and before he could waste any more time thinking he sidled up against the wall and picked up the chain again with his right hand.

_OK, let’s see how this thing handles._

The arm-thing made a whirring noise as he flexed his left elbow and raised his hand. He tried to move it forward and it struck the wall with a loud thwack. Too far. When he pulled it back the motion inside his shoulder felt like he had ball bearings under the skin, which he probably did now. He moved the left hand towards the wall, hoping this time he’d manage to be more gentle. The arm didn’t just feel numb, it felt like it had been encased in layers and layers of wool weighted down with metal; sensations were distant, tugs on a rope. Trying to get the metal fingers around the eyebolt (Jesus, had it _always_ been that small?) was like trying to play cards while wearing baseball gloves. Doing it in the dark was like playing cards while wearing baseball gloves, blindfolded. After what felt like an eternity of fumbling and nudging the metal-covered hand with his real one, he had the left fist closed around the eye bolt and the first few links of the chain. The air smelled of metal and sweat stung his eyes. He blinked it away.

 _Well, here goes nothing._ He flexed his right arm and hoped the left one followed. One, two—

A loud crack and he went flying backwards. Something struck his face a split second before he slammed against concrete. He scrambled onto his side with a spike of panic and groped around blindly, sent a length of the chain clattering when his hand bumped against it. He was, of course, on the floor. He’d just tumbled out of the bed and managed to hit himself with the chain at the same time like a champ. He flushed with embarrassment. He would have thought the dark would make that better, but it only made it worse.

Gingerly, he hauled himself to his feet. His whole left side throbbed as though he’d ripped something open, and he must have bit his own tongue because his mouth tasted like a handful of nickels. There were still loops of chain around his right arm. He shook them off.

He heard a clatter of concrete on concrete.

‘Don’t jerk me around,’ he said, but when he finished reeling the chain towards him, there was a chunk of concrete hanging from the end. He touched it, not quite sure he believed it yet, and his fingers found the bolt embedded in the centre.

He’d ripped the whole thing right off the wall.

He didn’t have time to think about it, or about whether he really believed it, or about what he could do now. It was like being inside a radio serial in which the hero got out of the cell and freed all the other POWs. His mind sat quietly as his body padded to what he hoped was the centre of the cell and tossed a loop of chain at the ceiling to try to find the grille.

Once there was a clang of metal on metal he stood back a little and looked up. A flash, just inside his temple, where it hurt: a blizzard, a hole in a stone wall. He squeezed his eyes shut, sending a ripple of pain across his cheek, where the chain had hit him. _A tunnel?_ Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. He looked up again, towards the grille he couldn’t see, wound the chain around his arm, and before he could think about it, jumped.

His fingers closed on nothing and he landed back on his feet, hard enough to nearly send him sprawling. He straightened up, tried again. This time his fingers brushed the metal cover, slid past it uselessly and he landed on the floor, badly, with a sickening crack in his right ankle that sent a whip of pain up his calf. He hopped on one leg for a few seconds, then resigned himself to sitting down and feeling for a fracture.

For once, he been lucky: there was nothing broken, at least not that he could feel. Sprained, maybe, but sprained didn’t really matter. Sprained wouldn’t kill you. The problem was getting a handle on that grille. If only he had something to stand—

He sprang up and padded around in the dark, ignoring his limp, until he found the cot again. He did have something to stand on. The thing might be bolted to the floor, but maybe that wouldn’t be a problem for his new… tool. He groped around the bed’s legs until he found the screws holding it in place. This time it took him much less time to get a grip on them with the metal-covered fingers and rip them away, squeezing and pulling them as though they were nothing but wooden splinters.

He was getting good at using the thing on his left arm. Really good.

It took him a while to find the grille again and drag the bed under it, the metal frame scrapping on the floor so loudly all the while that he was sure every single Hydra bastard around would hear it and come rushing into the cell. _Good. Can fight my way out, then._ Nobody came, though. They were leaving him alone for now, which also suited him. Balancing on the bed, he slipped the metal fingers into the holes in the grille and pulled. It took longer than the screws, but after a while the cover began to bend with a shrill squeak. Wires of pain lit up inside his left shoulder and upper back. He kept going, until the grille finally came loose with a loud snap and he had to use his right hand to keep his balance.

He tossed the grille to the mattress, where it landed with a thump, and felt inside the hole with his good hand. His heart rose into his throat; he couldn’t help it. There was the cold glass of the light bulb, concrete sides, concrete ceiling, jagged edges where he’d ripped the grille out, a small opening, no bigger than his fist, where he could feel a rush of cold air, and…

Nothing.

No vents big enough for him to crawl through. No wires he could try to short-circuit.

He felt inside the hole again, more frantic. It was still empty, its walls smooth as a tombstone.

***

For the next long while, he tried.

He tried yelling into the speaker, hoping someone would come down to shut him up, someone he could threaten, fight, take as a hostage. He tried saying ‘You win, Zola. Let’s do whatever it is you want to do.’

There was silence. Not even a whisper of static.

He tried hammering on the walls with the metal fist.

He tried using the chain to dig at the dimple left in the concrete when he’d ripped the bolt out the wall. He gave up once his right arm was itchy with dust, his fingers wracked by cramps, and he could no longer pretend that it wouldn’t take him a hundred years to make a hole just big enough for his head.

He tried sticking his hand in the little vent in the ceiling, and achieved nothing except scraping the skin on his palm. Maybe it would get infected and we’d end up in a sick bay. Easier to break out of. He laughed at that, out loud. It sounded like broken glass.

He tried investigating the metal thing welded to his arm. His fingers slid over polished steel, a constellation of filed-down rivet heads. Touching the hand reminded him of those gross old pictures of dissected limbs he’d seen whenever Steve dragged him to the Brooklyn Museum, a jumble of veins and sinew and nerves cast in iron and wire. He dropped the hand and moved to the seam in his shoulder, pressed his knuckles against numb, puffy flesh, and tried to get his thumb under the metal edge. No use. The steel had teeth inside him, like a bear trap. All he managed to do was nearly rip out his nails and make blood well.

He tried breaking the light bulb and root around in the exposed wires. They were dead, as dead as it got. There wasn’t even the sting of electricity. When he pulled his hand back, he managed to cut himself on a sharp edge, let out a little snort of pain, then noticed it: the silence, where before there had been the whisper of air. He felt for the vent again, his hand clammy. No, there was still air trickling in.

The flow was weaker than before, though. Much weaker.

In the end he lay on the cot and stared at the dark until his eyes were burning and he could see big hazy strips of green and yellow and purple, the colour of bile and bruises and sickness.

***

He wasn’t sure how long he lay there, staring at nothing. Not long, he hoped. Long enough for the pain in his head to fade to a dull throb and the pain in his ankle to grow to an iron band around his bones.

Long enough for the hunger and thirst to start in earnest.

He’d managed not to think about it until now. It had been easy to ignore, just a faint rumble in his stomach, a dryness in his mouth. Stuff you couldn’t afford to worry about when you were stuck in a windowless room in the middle of nowhere and had to figure a way out. But now the hunger pangs had grown until they were starting to mosey the pain out of the way. And the thirst, well, the thirst wasn’t so bad, maybe they’d watered him before he’d been asleep, but he could tell it wouldn’t take long for the thirst to give the hunger a run for its money.

And then there was the air. He might not have stopped it from coming into the cell while he was messing around with the vent like an idiot, but he’d done _something_ , hadn’t he? The room was growing hotter. Maybe not enough to bother him, not yet, maybe not enough for anyone else to notice. (Would Steve? He didn’t complain about the cold, but he’d never really complained about anything. If Bucky hadn’t been around he’d probably have died of an asthma attack at twelve while wheezing _‘m all right_.) But the temperature was increasing, little by little. In a few hours’ time—

He rolled onto his stomach. The bed groaned underneath him and the mattress stank of his own sweat. In the last two years he’d learned to sleep anywhere, sitting up, on his feet, sometimes even when he was doing something, a part of his mind slumbering while his legs walked or his eyes scanned a tree line. Sleep was one of your best buddies, below clean water but well above _hot_ water, razor blades, and bars of soap, and right now Bucky just wanted to close his eyes and catch up with his old pal for a few hours.

_You have to sleep sometime._

‘Screw you, Zola,’ he muttered, and hoisted himself down to the floor. He pictured them all when this was finally over, him, Steve, the rest of the Commandos, Peggy, hell, even Stark. No, _especially_ Stark; who else had the money to take them all on a yacht and serve them champagne in ice buckets and steak brought in from Oscar’s Delmonico’s? (Where else would they all be allowed to sit together, after the war, if not at sea?) In the cell, Bucky crawled around on all fours and felt the floor with his flesh hand, trying to find a gap, a hinge, a rivet. Jim Morita would get soused and start singing in a voice that could kill birds mid-flight, Dum Dum and Gabe, who could go through drink like a fish through water, would get started, calmly and methodically, on fleecing everyone at cards. And he, well, at some point he was going to realise that no one was actually listening to his funny story about escaping from the Hydra base, and would join Peggy and Jacques around the things rich people ate. Salmon drenched in butter. Strawberries, the kind he’d only really seen in pictures, huge and swollen with juice. Big spoonfuls of sweet cream.

He could tell the proper story later, when he and Steve went to Coney Island, no outfit, no uniforms, no fatigues, and had root beers so cold they frosted the glass and hot dogs that were probably mostly hoof and the occasional rat dropping but would taste better than life. They would ride the Cyclone—

_paybacktrainhangon_

—and this time he was pretty sure Steve wouldn’t throw up.

His fingers hit something. He nearly cried out, in surprise and relief, until he realised it was only a wall. Still, he had to try those too. He felt the concrete, inch by inch. His fingers trembled. Sweat dripped into his eyes and down his face, thick as tears.

Maybe he would tell the story to Becca too. A pang of guilt hit him, almost stronger than the hunger and tiredness. How many times in the past two years had he had the chance to send a few words to his little sister and had instead grabbed some sleep in a real bed, or had a drink and a smoke, or played a record dusty with the debris of bombs? He would make it up to her once he was out of here. Make her those buttermilk pancakes they both loved so much, drowned in syrup, heaped with blueberries, the real thing even if he had to go to fucking Vermont and pick them off a field. Did she still like them? She was almost eighteen now.

He was going to tell her about getting out of this place. Just the less bad parts, just like everything he’d tell her about the war. He wasn’t going to tell her about slitting someone’s throat and feeling the life gush out, how easy it got, like something you put in a box and locked away. He wasn’t going to tell her about the burnt-out villages, the old women crying over broken bodies, alive and dead, about how they’d come across one of the camps and saw soldiers push out empty baby strollers, half a dozen at a time, for over an hour.

He wasn’t going to tell her about how, after he finally found a hair-thin crack in one of the walls, he hacked at the door (if it was a door) with the metal hand until the thing made a few clicking noises then locked into a useless claw, after he’d managed to do nothing more than gauge a few furrows in the concrete. He wasn’t going to tell her about slamming his body against the door until he was sure he was cracking bones and spraying blood. He wasn’t going to tell her about how he slid to the floor, panting and bruised, and wailed like a cow stuck in a bog.

He would tell her about how things got a bit hot. He wasn’t going to tell her about how the air in the room was so thick he made a little panting noise every time he drew a breath, or how his body dripped sweat until he grew so thirsty that the sweat just _stopped_ , and then there was only his cracked lips and his tongue sitting like a dried root inside his mouth. His skin was covered in hives; he was sure that every time he touched it, big strips of it peeled right off.

He wished he’d licked the sweat off himself when he still could. He wasn’t going to tell her that either.

He definitely wasn’t going to tell her how, after a thousand years of this (two days, maybe; god, he hoped it had been _at least_ a day), he ended up drinking his own piss out of his cupped hand. Every last drop, even licked his palm after.

‘Had worse beers,’ his mouth said, then coughed out a wheeze of laughter. The words scratched his throat. It was like trying to speak through sand.

No, he wasn’t going to tell her about this bit. Not her, not anyone, not even Steve. At least his face was already too hot to burn with shame. What an amazing stroke of luck.

He could tell her about not giving up, at least. Because he wasn’t going to, was he? He crawled out of the spot where he’d been lying and inched across the floor, going nowhere. Looking for something. Maybe he should stay put, conserve his energy, but he couldn’t. He had to try. He had to at least try.

He pressed his forehead against the metal in his arm. It had been cool at first, blessedly cool, but now even it was growing warm. Maybe it would turn hotter and hotter, until it burst into flame and turned him into a smear of ash.

Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.

He kept crawling, a worm stuck on a hook, writhing under an unforgiving blaze.

***

Tiredness. He’d forgotten about tiredness. He had spent two years thumbing his nose at it but now it was _back_ , it was back _in style_ , one night only, line of long-legged chorus girls, all-singing all-dancing. Hunger wasn’t even in the running anymore. His kidneys were two hot spikes inside him, the skin under the handcuff was rubbed raw, his limbs would spasm once in a while, but pain had gone down by total KO. Pain was out and thirst was taking a pounding, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, tiredness, your undisputed cham—

He slapped himself. He couldn’t stand up anymore but for now sitting up had kept him from sleeping. He’d slapped himself to stop his body from sliding to the floor, his sandbag-heavy eyelids from dropping shut.

_You have to sleep sometime._

He wasn’t sure where he was. In the dark. A million miles in every direction. A hole cut into nothing.

If only he could sleep. Five minutes. _Yes lie down just lie down._ Just five minutes. Wouldn’t make a difference. Catnap. One eye open. Did it all the time. No one would notice.

He hit himself with the curled-up metal hand.

His ears rang. He was face-down on the floor, his mouth full of his own blood. When he swallowed it, the thirst came roaring back. He thought of finding the glass shards from the broken light, slicing a vein open, and sucking it dry.

At least he hadn’t knocked himself out.

‘Don’t fall asleep.’ Speaking was agony. He did it anyway. His head was throbbing again, but the pain was good, the pain kept him awake. He sat up, grabbed a handful of his hair, and yanked. ‘Don’t fall asleep.’ Another slap, with the real hand, just hard enough to sting. ‘Don’t fall asleep.

Don’t fall asleep.

Don’t—

***

—fall asleep.’

The light was a thread of milk, falling from the heavens. When he lifted his hand towards it, it curled around his fingers in ripples of colour.

‘It’s time.’

Yes, that made sense. He got up. He was still on the floor, but he was also up.

He had expected Steve, but instead it was Peggy. The light made a green halo around her hair.

As long as it was _someone_.

 _OK, let’s do as bees and buzz off_. The words didn’t come out of his mouth but they spilled into the air nonetheless, where they hovered in place, their edges a shimmery blue. _Kick some Hydra butts on our way out._

Peggy drifted a little closer. ‘I’m afraid not,’ she said, but it sounded like _frayed knot_ , which was actually pretty _funny_ , everybody laugh, her lips were too red but the colours around her hair were shifting, bright yellow, orange, neon-blue…

‘I’m sorry.’ She shook her head. Red dripped from her mouth to the floor. ‘But I think you understand by now. We lost. We died. And now it’s your turn.’

He looked down at his hands, where the flesh began to melt, and underneath there was metal instead of bone.

***

Awake. He was awake. He gasped into his right hand. The skin was cold, but it was real. Nothing else was real. He was just seeing things.

He squeezed his eyes shut but he still saw the most terrible colours.

***

He was a coward who didn’t just hold on until he died. He would have that to take to his grave, too.

***

The last crawl was the longest.

He dragged himself across the floor, the chain rattling behind him, the metal hand bumping on the concrete. He couldn’t feel his body any longer, just the lead weight of the heat, the stink of ammonia and stale sweat in the air.

Hours. It must have taken hours. Days. His hand hit a wall, slid down to the floor. Don’t stop. Don’t stop.

‘Zola.’ It sounded like a puff of dust. Was he even next to the speaker? His body convulsed again, then he rolled onto his back. Sensation returned, just a little. His skin had sloughed off and he was crawling on deadened nerves.

Another word sandpapered its way out. ‘Someone.’

They were going to leave him here. Punishment for not saying yes straight away.

Everybody was dead. A fortress full of corpses.

He coughed. It burned his mouth. ‘Please.’

Light, wounding. He winced. Closing his eyes hurt. Hands touched him, but he didn’t fight back. He didn’t even feel shame.

Cold air. Rubber squeaked underneath him.

‘Hello again, Sergeant.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In our world, the word robotics was coined by Isaac Asimov in 1941 (I actually did my best to check all the slang and jargon in this fic to make sure it’s period-appropriate, but bear in mind that my knowledge of linguistics could fit in a thimble, so I apologise in advance for any mistakes :)). In this fictional universe, it sounds like the sort of thing Howard Stark would come up with. Bucky’s younger sister Rebecca is from the comics. She’s not mentioned in the MCU (not really counting the Smithsonian poster as MCU canon, since it contradicts itself, like, three times) but neither is there anything in the films that contradicts her existence, so for my fics I’ve decided she also exists in the movie-verse. With regards to Bucky’s family in general, I’ve lifted several elements from comics (616) canon, but altered it in several ways, both to fit with the MCU and to serve the purposes of this story. There will be more about Bucky’s family and childhood in future chapters. Comics!Bucky also came across a Nazi concentration camp, incidentally, in _Captain America and Bucky_ #623 (Dec 2011). He reacted in [pretty much the way you’d expect](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/overlithe/15266763/257418/257418_original.png) (the uniform was part of an infiltration ploy, in case you were wondering). Typically, a person can survive without water for about three days, less than that in hot temperatures, and death is usually preceded by organ failure and coma. However, I assumed Bucky would last longer (while conscious) due to the effects of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Super-Soldier Serum. Peggy showing up in Bucky’s hallucinations is kind of a roundabout reference to the comics/cartoon AUs in which they end up together in some form or another, because Bucky/Steve, Bucky/Nat, and Bucky/Sam (and OT3 & OT4) are the ships of my heart, but I’m really fond of Bucky/Peggy too (to be honest, I don’t have a Bucky ships fleet, I have a Bucky ships armada). Actually, now I feel really bad for bringing up my ships in such a terrible, terrible context. :(


	3. Operant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The German translations in this chapter were kindly provided by **shadowvalkyrie** , with additional comments and suggestions by **gelbes_gilatier** , **lied_ohne_worte** , and **syredronning**. Thank you all for your help!

**3\. Operant**

‘Look what you’ve done to yourself,’ Zola said, somewhere out of sight, then let out a mutter of disapproval. Bucky kept his eyes half-closed against the light above him, but he could tell he was being wheeled somewhere. Faces drifted in and out of sight. He tried to lift his hand. Instead, his body spasmed again.

Zola’s voice wafted above him. ‘Calm down, Sergeant. _Ist die Infusion bereit_?’

 _Is the—infusion_ , he supposed— _ready?_ Did Zola know Bucky could understand German? No time to think. There was a quick jab of pain in the flesh of his arm. Straps snapped around his wrists, a door swung open.

That stink again, hospital soap, rubbing alcohol. This time he fought them, he did, he could swear he did, but all he managed was to beat helplessly against the restraints. His sight was hazy with fever: it made the ceiling lights bob like corks. His head lolled to one side and he saw white coats, machines he didn’t recognise. Out of the corner of his eye, a big wall clock, the number seventeen, some letters he couldn’t quite see, 1947.

_!!!_

‘You are really going to have to calm down.’

 _Crazy. This is crazy._ His throat was too dry to let the words out. He was going to die here, strapped to a gurney, his skin sloughing off his bones. He could feel it peel away and slip down to the floor. Die with Zola looking down at him and that smell filling up his nose.

‘Here.’

Bucky’s head slumped towards the voice.

Zola looked just like he did before. Same piggy eyes behind round glasses. Same slightly worried, slightly smug expression. Same bow tie.

No, all different. The rat bastard was holding a glass of water.

Thirst got up from the dust and came roaring back with a rocket blast. The fever turned into a sharp steel wire around his head. He could see the beads of condensation around the rim of the glass. His eyes prickled with sand.

‘You want this, Sergeant?’ Zola shook the glass. A few drops of water fell on the hand holding it. Bucky would have licked them right off his skin.

 _Yes! Please, God, yes!_ His tongue was a blistered mass in his mouth, but Zola didn’t need to be told. He drew a step closer, holding the glass just out of reach, but close enough for Bucky to _smell_ it, whoever said water had no smell was a goddamn _liar_ , that smell, faintly mineral, faintly metallic, so cool, so sweet…

‘I will give it to you, but you really have to behave better,’ Zola said, in the tone of someone explaining something to a particularly dim child. ‘What is going to happen next, you have to be a part of it, Sergeant. No more stubbornness. What do you say?’

_No._

He would have offered Zola a suck job in exchange for a sip.

‘—s’

‘What was that, Sergeant?’

He closed his eyes so no one could see. His throat wept, but he managed to force the word out. ‘Yes.’

‘Very good!’ He sounded genuinely elated. ‘You see how easy it is, when people work together?’ Still he didn’t bring the glass to Bucky’s lips. ‘I can’t let you drink right away, you’re too dehydrated and would likely, ah—choke. But I will give you some ice, you will put it under your tongue and you will like it very much. Then you can have the water. Get you ready for the last procedure. _Sie können den rechten Arm loslassen_.’

A woman spoke in a language Bucky didn’t recognise. Russian? Polish? Something Eastern European for sure, but it couldn’t be Russian, the Russians wouldn’t be working with the Germans. _I am Swiss_. Hydras, so many heads, cut one off, two more will take its place.

_1947!_

Thinking was agony. He just wanted some water.

The woman spoke again, German. _Are you sure, Professor?_ An interpreter. ‘ _Ich versichere Ihnen, wir haben das Versuchsobjekt unter Kontrolle_ ,’ Zola said. Having something under control? They were talking about Bucky himself, maybe. He didn’t understand it all, this was science-talk, not ordinary German. Someone fussed with the binding around his right wrist. He opened his eyes, looked down at himself as far as he could, which wasn’t far. His arm kept making little jerking motions, the skin covered in an angry rash, a needle buried in the crook of his elbow. The nails were half torn off, the fingers bloodstained. When had he done that? He didn’t remember.

A man said something in the unknown language and a chorus of laughs followed. Bucky tried to twist his head around to look at them, but the strange machines were in the way. He thought he could see suits, maybe glimpse the muzzles of guns. A white coat came at him with a pair of scissors. He tried to raise his right arm but it only flopped and twitched helplessly. His gown was cut away.

‘Here, Sergeant.’ Zola held an ice chip in his fingers, and when he placed it in Bucky’s mouth, he was careful not to touch the lips.

Cold. So cold and sharp and sweet. Zola droned on, but the world narrowed to the feel of the ice on Bucky’s sore tongue, the melted water dripping into his throat. He shuddered, felt a wave of queasiness rise from his stomach. Still he chewed on the ice like his life depended on it, which it probably did. He heard gasps. It took him a while to realise the sounds were coming from his throat.

‘— _nur ein Prototyp_.’

Pressure on his left side. He turned his head around to see—

 _What? God_ , what _?_ More white coats swarmed around his arm, the one with all the metal. It was sitting on a table a few feet away. There was a ring of steel on his shoulder, wires and clips snaking out, hanging where the rest of his arm should be. Under the lights the ridges of scar tissue were a shiny pink, the red-purple of storm clouds. He tried shrugging his shoulder. Metal whirred, wires dangled. He didn’t feel the motion; it was happening very far away, under panes of glass. Liquid oozed out. It stank of pus and engine oil, enough to make him gag. Ice water got into his nose.

‘There, there.’

Hands placed a blindfold over his face. He started to struggle—to squirm in place—but it was only a damp cloth. No chloroform, no horrible chemicals. Fingers traced little circular motions on his temples. It felt… good, almost. ‘ _Ja, machen Sie weiter, das wird ihn beruhigen_ ,’ Zola said, then fed him another ice chip.

‘You are very strong, Sergeant.’ A hubbub of voices. Machines, whirring away. ‘Soon you will be in good enough shape for us to complete the procedure, even after all the damage you did. Very foolishly, I may add.’

Water dribbled out of his mouth. Thoughts were difficult, molasses-thick. In the half-dark, with the fingertips rubbing his temples, he just wanted to fall asleep. _Don’t. Don’t. Don’t._ ‘You. You did,’ he gurgled.

‘I most absolutely did not. I have not hurt you in any way. I have not even touched you. You have only yourself and your stubbornness to blame for any damage you suffered. Had you cooperated from the start…’

A gnawing in his stomach. Was it hunger? He had forgotten about it, and now maybe it was trying to remind him it existed. ‘Tried to talk.’

‘Hmm? No, I rather think I would have remembered that, Sergeant.’ Bucky could sense Zola drawing back, then placing something cold and metallic against his fingers. It took a while for his hand to flinch, and slap weakly against the object. ‘Do not worry, it’s only a bowl of ice. Feel free to use it. The prep protocol can be very long. Very tedious. But be careful of the needle in your arm. You do not wish to hurt yourself.’

_Yeah, anything but that, pal!_

_Rip it out._

He remained stuck in place, flesh splayed out on the table while his head drifted about in a fog bank. Once in a while he understood words, words that sounded almost like English ones. _Protocol. Subject. Surgery._ Things happened to his body while the words were said: a needle-prick on the back of his hand, suction cups attached to his skin. A saw buzzed to life and his whole body clenched, the restraints biting into his flesh. But the saw was far away, and the only smell was of smoke and molten metal.

The cloth slid off his face and he could see the ceiling, ringed by a gallery, vague shapes behind the glass, looking down at him. He knew he was supposed to feel embarrassment over his nakedness, but all he managed to do was stare up, to where the lights looked like a shoal of angry eyes.

 _Is it… done?_ He couldn’t be sure if he spoke out loud. He tried to move his head but blocks of some kind were holding it in place. All he could do was look down or sideways until his eyes ached with the strain, and all he could see even then was a halo of wires around him, vanishing into the bowels of machines. Lines hummed softly on the screens. Snatches of German: Zola was talking through the interpreter. People scribbled away, ignoring the body on the table. He tried to move his right arm, but it wasn’t free any longer, or maybe the flesh had just gone dead.

A machine hummed to life, started making a rhythmic clicking sound. Lines spiked across a screen. ‘The procedure has already started, Sergeant Barnes,’ Zola said, somewhere behind Bucky’s head. The clicking grew louder, the thumping of an enormous heart. ‘I am afraid it is likely to be long and… difficult. But I can anaesthetise—make you sleep, if you’d like. When you wake up it will all be over. You won’t feel a thing.’

 _You must sleep sometime_. No. No way. He tried to choke out a _go to hell_ but only managed to dribble water down the corner of his mouth. He shook his head instead.

‘Are you sure? Very well. _Keine Betäubung. Er möchte bei Bewusstsein bleiben_.’ The woman translated again. There were a few titters of laughter. Zola turned back to him. ‘You know, you are going to regret it. But if you insist…’

***

He regretted it.

***

‘It is nearly over.’

The voice was very far away. The world was black wires, fuzzy green waves on screens. _James. James Barnes. James Something. Something. Bucky. My friends call me Bucky._

He had long since stopped making noises. He had stopped thinking even before that.

_Sergeant? Sergeant. Brooklyn. Three two…_

_Three two… Numbers, other numbers. Five. Barnes. Bucky Barnes. Brooklyn. New York. America. Something America. Captain! Captain America and his—and his—_

Some of the screens turned grey. Lights swam above him.

Excited voices, saying something he didn’t understand. His head was allowed to loll to one side, scratchy fabric on his cheek, a man moved towards him, white coat bow tie tuft of blond hair.

The man—the man—

_Zola! His name is Zola! Zola!_

‘Here, Sergeant.’ _Sergeant, yes, Sergeant._ ‘You made, hmm, quite a fuss, but it’s over now. You can— _Ach je!_ ’

He—

_bucky my name is bucky_

—had yanked his body sideways and swung halfway off the table. A drinking glass slipped out of Zola’s hands and shattered on the floor.

 _Shards_. Hands pulled his now-limp body back up. A cuff of leather and metal hung, ripped in half, from his right wrist. A needle was driven into the plastic tubing snaking away from his arm. _Don’t_. On a screen a grey line was spiking, spiking, up and away. Where was his left arm?

 _I am going to take those shards and shove them right in your throat, Zola_. Blood, trickling down, Technicolor-bright. He felt sick. _You will open your mouth to say_ Ach je! _But you won’t get to—_

***

The nausea woke him up.

Pain came right after, dull-edged, like he’d been pulled apart and stitched back together inexpertly. He rolled to the edge of the bed and dry heaved. A thread of spittle hit the floor tiles, but there wasn’t anything for him to throw up.

His head. Something had happened to his head. He sat up, and that’s when he noticed that his left arm wasn’t just numb, it was _gone_ , a bulky bandage covering the spot where it should attach to his shoulder.

But he’d _had_ an arm, hadn’t he? A metal arm. Orange-red light. Wires stitching his flesh to a screen full of green lines.

 _Oh God_. Something had happened to his memories. He had woken up in this place before, in a—he thought—different room, and then something had happened to his memories of the after. Cut away at them until only frayed ends remained. The ragged edges of a hole. He tried to grab at the glimpses but it was like trying to force out a name sitting on the tip of your tongue. All he managed to do was make the inside of his skull ache.

He raised his remaining fingertips and touched the side of his head, gingerly, as though it were made of glass. His face was damp. He hoped it was just sweat and not tears.

 _You still have yourself, Buck. You still have yourself_. The thought was faint, and it was mostly in Steve’s voice, but it was still true. He didn’t know how he’d ended up here and he didn’t know what had been done to him in the meantime (what had happened to his arm?), but he still knew who he was, and where he’d come from.

 _James Buchanan Barnes. My friends call me Bucky_. He tried to recall his earliest memory.

_Dad._

Still a little jab of pain. The first time he’d met Steve, then. Maybe not the happiest memory ever, having to pull three bullies off him, but when a tiny scrap of a kid decided to go up against the biggest, meanest jerks in school and then shrugged off a black eye like it was nothing, you couldn’t help but think things were going to have a way of turning out all right. You’d make sure they would, even if just for his sake.

Meeting Steve for the second time, in class. Steve was told off for adding all kinds of weird creatures to what was supposed to be a drawing of an apple. ‘Don’t mind him,’ Bucky had said. ‘I think your drawing is the bee’s knees.’

Becca hanging off their sleeves in Coney Island, begging to go up on the Wonder Wheel, then Bucky sitting between her and Steve, wondering, as the car began to rock, about which of the two would be the first to turn green and upchuck their cotton candy.

‘I see you’re awake, Sergeant.’

Cold rippled through his flesh before a thought could form. _Zola_. He knew, from some place deep in the hole of memories, that Zola was here, that Zola had dome something to him, but he wasn’t afraid. Not at (after) Azzano, not chasing the—

_train_

—creepy little ghoul across Europe, not now. Not now. Not now.

‘How are you feeling, Sergeant?’ Zola went on. His voice was coming from a speaker embedded at eye level in the wall. Looking at it made Bucky a little uneasy. He should have been going over every inch of the cell the moment he’d come to instead of sitting around moping.

‘Swell. Probably go for a swim later, maybe a bike race...’

_Door, where’s the door?_

‘Ha! You are making a joke, but as it turns out I should very much like to see that. The procedure, I am happy to report, appears to have been a complete success. Enough for the General to share some of his excellent champagne, at least. And you must be feeling the differences already.’

_What? What differences?_

_Who the hell is the General?_

‘Of course,’ Zola went on, ‘they won’t be as noticeable as they were for the—the other subject. You must have become quite the expert on those, having been in such close proximity…’

If that was supposed to be a jab, Bucky ignored it. Instead he looked down at his bare torso, trying not to let his gaze drift to where his shoulder ended abruptly, or the spots where he could feel a phantom limb, lying against his side.There was a ring of pink, still-healing skin around his wrist, faded bruises on his fingertips. Seeing them—remains of injuries he couldn’t remember—made the nausea swell until his head was swimming. What else had been done to him, in places he couldn’t see? He balled his hand into a fist, squeezed it until his fingers ached. _Focus._ Whatever Zola was prattling on about, he couldn’t…

Maybe he was a little bigger now, more muscular. And maybe that scent of soap he’d been smelling since he’d woken up wasn’t the room, maybe it was a faint trace of scent clinging to his skin and he was picking up on it because now, he _could_. Better than—

He dashed out of the bed and got almost to the wall (so fast) before stinging pain arced through his body and sent him sprawling across the floor. He panted as his body shook, then stilled, beyond his control. A smell of singed skin hung in the air and he could hear the soft crackle of electricity.

‘Oh, don’t look so put out, Sergeant,’ Zola said, sounding as though something terribly amusing had just happened. Pain still rippled under Bucky’s skin, but he managed to roll up onto his side. This close to the wall he could see a fisheye lens next to the speaker, like a blind eye. _Get up. Get up get up_. ‘It was only a little electricity. Should I have let you slam yourself against the walls? Was that the plan, hmm?’

‘Thought I’d start by giving you a good kick in the pants, see how things went from there,’ Bucky spat out, voice shaky. Those weird tiles on the floor… what if the whole thing was electrified? Maybe the walls too, they did look like they were made of some kind of metal.

‘Oh, you wouldn’t break through the walls, not even with all your new strength. But it was nice to see how fast you are now. You will be even faster once you have your new body under control, I am sure.’

‘What did you do to me, Zola?’ _What did you do to my head?_

_Don’t let him see you’re afraid._

‘Nothing you didn’t want, Sergeant. Nothing without your—ah, _eager_ cooperation, one might even say.’

Bucky sat up. His body was still sore, but it was no longer shaking, at least. ‘Bullshit.’

The speaker let out a noise of disapproval. ‘We are going to have to do something about your language, Sergeant. And it is not a lie. See for yourself.’

The black eye on the wall winked to life and a rectangle of white light appeared above the bed. Bucky could hear the rat-tat-tat of reels spinning inside a projector, maybe a few yards away.

He almost didn’t recognise himself on the black-and-white film, even though he supposed he looked the same as always. In the film he lay on an operating table, staring vacantly as people—doctors, scientists, he supposed—put electrodes on his skin and pressed buttons on machines. His film-self’s right arm was unbound, but he wasn’t trying to break free. He wasn’t even moving, just shuddering once in a while, like a cow awaiting its turn in a slaughterhouse.

‘You drugged me,’ he said, but how did he know? He felt another dry heave coming and lowered his head until the bout of nausea passed, then scrambled back onto the bed, where he wouldn’t have to look at himself, letting it happen, doing nothing. ‘Enough. Stop it, Zola.’

‘As you wish.’ The projector clicked back to silence and the beam of light vanished.

For a while, Bucky didn’t speak. He sat on the bed, head on his knees, listening to his own breathing, the hum of the electric lights. He hoped Zola was gone, that he had finally left him alone, but he kept thinking of a metal mouth, a glass-covered eye, unblinking, ever-watching. Why hadn’t these people just killed him? Why hadn’t they just put a bullet in his head?

When Zola spoke again, his tone was soft, as though they were two friends chatting. ‘Would you like to know what I think, Sergeant?’

‘Been waiting for it forever,’ Bucky said, but it was reflex. He felt more tired than he’d ever felt in his life, more tired than when he’d marched thirty miles across northern Italy, more tired than after two weeks under heavy fire. He knew he had only just woken up from a drugged sleep, that now he could probably go for much longer than he’d been capable of after the things after Azzano.

But here he couldn’t close his eyes.

Zola, who had let out a polite little laugh at Bucky’s reply, like someone indulging a child, went on. ‘We have a file on you, Sergeant. I have studied it carefully, even though it does not make for very interesting reading. You are not, I have to say, a very interesting subject matter. Average grades, average intelligence, no particular qualities or talent for anything. If I had to sum you up in a word, I would have to choose “mediocre”. Do you have anything to say to that?’

Bucky raised his head. ‘Help,’ he said flatly. ‘I am being dressed down by a man who chops off arms and locks people up in his basement.’

‘Ah, no real answer, then. Was that why you became friends with Rogers in the first place? Because even you might look good in comparison?’

His face heated with anger, but he said nothing. _I might not be half the man Steve Rogers is, dumb funny pages and all, but you and all your goons couldn’t pack his lunch. Not now, not when he was ten years old and swimming inside a shirt three sizes too big for him, not back when he was a scrap of a kid with a big mouth and who couldn’t run up a flight of stairs without either his lungs or his joints killing him_. When you got captured, you didn’t answer questions. When your captors were batting that far away from the truth, you let them.

‘Did it upset you, his change? I am sure it must have, on some level. It is all right, Sergeant. You can admit to it now. I am the only one here, and who am I going to tell, hmm? No? That is a shame. I was rather hoping we might be able to start off on an honest foot—footing, I mean. Well, you don’t have to admit it yet, if it is too hard. But it is the truth, isn’t it? I mean, there he was, finally, the hero, the golden boy. Whereas someone like you, well. Yes, of course they would have given you all kinds of little medals if you had gone back. And you made friends easily, didn’t you? Or acquaintances, rather. They have a term for this, in the science of psychology, did you know? It is called “superficial charm”.’

Bucky had to stop himself from shrugging, or perhaps laughing. Who cared—

_I am invisible I am turning into_

—about being a hero?

‘You don’t have to answer, Sergeant. But you must at least have wondered why Rogers hasn’t come for you yet. He has had enough time by now. But the truth is, he is not even looking. Your family is not looking either. Nor are any of your “friends”.’ Bucky could hear the inverted commas in Zola’s voice. ‘Frankly, I think it is a little indecent. The speed they all forgot you with. Maybe it was the fact there never was a body. People say it is harder when there isn’t one, you have probably heard it, but it is a lie. A probable, even almost certain yes is easier than a definite one. You can keep—what is the word?—postponing it. There is no grave to visit, no day set aside for the anniversary. You don’t even have to mourn. You can just say to yourself that it’s early days, that there’s still hope, that you’re not giving up. And all the while you are carrying on with your new life, new friends, new loved ones. You do not even have to feel guilt. Everyone will tell you how strong you are.’

There was a little burst of static, as though, in some other room, the flesh-and-blood Zola had just brushed the microphone. ‘Ah, maybe I am wrong. Maybe it is not everyone, just the people who knew you. Maybe they all got the measure of you, eh?’

Hope. For all his cleverness the dumb fuck had just gone ahead and given Bucky hope. He didn’t dare move, sure that Zola would see it on his face, the way he sat. His nose started itching almost immediately, but right now he didn’t mind it.

Steve was alive. His family, alive. Dum Dum, Jim Morita, Jacques, Gabe, Falsworth (don’t call me Monty), enough of them alive for Zola to say friends, plural; maybe all of them alive, God willing and with a little luck. Peggy and Stark alive, almost certainly. The war had been won and they were all alive and well, at least enough to move on and (but that was Zola’s lie) forget him.

If in exchange for all that he had to be the one to face Zola, well, that didn’t seem like too high a price to pay.

‘No amusing curse words? You’re slipping, Sergeant.’

Bucky looked straight at the lens on the wall. ‘I’ve got the measure of you too, Zola.’

He had learned, after Azzano, strapped to that table. The kind of person who didn’t know the difference between kicking a cat away and taking it apart still alive to see how it worked.

‘Oh, I am sure that is of no consequence at all. All it matters is who _you_ are. Being your Captain America’s right hand, following him around, that must have given you a certain purpose. So what are you, without that? When following him brought you to this room? When everything is… stripped away?’

‘Barnes, James Buchanan,’ Bucky said. ‘Sergeant. One-oh-seventh. Three-two-five…’ He stumbled there, just for a moment. He could feel the rest of the serial number slipping into the black hole inside his head before he caught it again. ‘Three-two-five-five-seven-zero-three-eight.’

Zola’s laughter sounded like a spill of needles. ‘Oh, Sergeant, it is not so bad here, I assure you. Think of what you would have had to look forward to if it weren’t for me. Grubby little children, sour-mouthed wife, pinching every penny, drinking yourself into a stupor. But now, you get to be something extraordinary. Don’t forget that.

Perhaps you won’t even have to be alone. Do you think your dear Captain would like his own little room here?’

Bucky drew in a cold breath. ‘You’re a monster, Zola.’

‘Ah, yes, I was sure that was what you would say! But as I said before, I read your file. All those fights you used to get into, you will say you were just defending your friend, yes? Stop the other youngsters from—ah, picking on him. I think, though, I think you enjoyed them. You certainly had no problem killing all those men in the war, without a single concern, I am sure. And when you were found and had your surgery, you nearly strangled someone to death. They were doing it to save your life, to stop your mangled arm from killing you. You woke up, and you nearly killed someone. The very first thing you did. So what does that say about _you_ , Sergeant? About what you are? Do you know that the procedure amplifies what is already inside? So what will we discover about you, I wonder.’

Bucky’s mouth opened, but he didn’t answer. He pictured the bars of a cage, a strange bird trapped inside.

_I have to get out of here._

‘We are going to do great things together,’ Zola said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Re: Bucky’s father, when Bucky refers to his folks in CA:TWS, in my head-canon he’s talking about his mother and stepfather. As for his birth father, comics readers can probably guess what the backstory is there, but in any case it will be delved into in future chapters. Some of what Zola says to Bucky in this chapter’s last scene draws heavily on what “John Smith” (a serial killer who killed his victims by locking them in little rooms in the middle of nowhere and then screwing with their heads until they lost the will to live; so, well, I guess you can see the relevance…) says in the _Cold Case_ episode _The Road_ (season 5, episode 15). As for what Zola is doing in the USSR and how Hydra found another of its congenial little nests, again I will delve into that a bit more in future chapters. I have assumed that Bucky’s metal arm went through several iterations, as it seems logical that they’d modify it as technology improved. Also, I thought of keeping a running tally of all of Zola’s lies, omissions, and distortions, but this fic is already long enough as it is. If Zola’s manipulative BS were a _Where’s Wally?_ puzzle, it would literally be a page of Wallies with just this one lady in a stripy sweater, istg.


	4. Sleep

**4\. Sleep**

At first, staying awake was the hardest part. They were dosing him, somehow, so that no matter what he did to try to stay conscious—talking out loud, pacing his cell, pinching himself until he bruised and bled—he would always black out sooner or later, then wake up from his death-sleep queasy and terrified, his limbs leaden.

First attempt: he tested the walls, first with his real hand, then with the metal one. He was strong, but the walls were stronger. Even slamming them with all his weight didn’t put a dent on them, just on him.

He didn’t dream. When he was a little kid he’d had to have his tonsils removed (still groggy from the ether, he had asked Dad when it was going to happen, only to be told that it was already over and he’d been very brave) and this was the same kind of sleep, where you blinked and a chunk of time was cut out without you noticing it. As a kid he had been annoyed at having a whole day of play taken away. Now he was half-furious, half-sick. Whenever he woke up he checked himself thoroughly, trying to see if there was anything else they’d stolen along with the missing hours.

Sometimes he found bruises, needle pricks, ligature marks. They were always very faint, but he knew he couldn’t gauge time by them. He tried once, knowing he healed faster now. He hit his wrist on the edge of the cot, hard, until there was a reddening lump the size of a chicken egg, then did the same with his thigh, for comparison. He started counting away each minute, one to sixty, hoping to get a crude idea of how long it would take for the bruises to come and go. He might be able to tell time by the marks on him whenever he woke up, a chart in purples and yellows and faded greens.

 _Bucky Barnes, the human stopwatch_. He laughed, jagged-edged, eyes fixed all the while on the places where he’d injured himself, unable to shake the feeling that looking away or even blinking too long would cause another blackout to happen.

He didn’t look away. Maybe he didn’t even blink. They made him black out anyway, and when he came to the bruises he’d given himself were gone.

He tried not to think about what other things they could do to him while he was unconscious, things whose marks would fade before he woke up, things that wouldn’t leave any marks at all.

He thought about it anyway.

Second attempt: he tried the hair’s breadth gaps around what had to be some kind of panel or door. There were no rivets, no screws. He tried to work his real fingers in, ended up ripping two of his fingernails in half. He tried the metal fingers next as he held his throbbing right hand to his chest. The metal hand kept slipping. When he managed to get a grip, it was like taking a sledgehammer to a mountain: a lot of noise for nothing.

He could keep track of how many times he’d been awake, at least. Twenty-three. As soon as he stopped shaking and the nausea receded enough for thought, he would reach for the last number and add one more, clasp it and roll it around in his mind like he had sometimes seen Mrs Rogers do with a rosary wound around her fingers. He might not know how long he spent unconscious, but he could count out the minutes and the hours he spent awake, repeat them to himself under his breath as he paced the cell. It added up to almost ten days. They never allowed him to be awake for very long.

(Not ten days.)

Ten weeks.

Ten months.

Ten years.

His body might not change on the outside, but he could feel the time inside, where they couldn’t touch unless they sliced him apart. Bone-weary. Heartsick. He understood now.

Third attempt: the vent at the bottom of one of the walls. It was only slightly bigger than his hand (the real one), but there was only a metal grille covering it, and he could manage that just fine. It was a little tricky, getting the metal fingers in the right place, but once he did, he tore the cover off like a piece of tissue paper. The hole inside the vent was not much bigger than the opening itself, but, lying on his back, he managed to work the metal hand in, then slid it deeper inch by inch, so slow he could feel the beads of sweat forming on his forehead. _Easy. Easy_. After maybe half a foot, the hole twisted upwards. The metal arm didn’t feel pain and it barely felt pressure, so he bent it as much as he could inside the cramped space and forced it up, tried to guide himself by the sound of metal on metal. He had only a few inches’ leeway; close to the shoulder the arm got too big to fit in the opening.

He sensed the crackle of electricity before he heard it. There was a tenth of a second before the floor turned into a live wire and he tried to yank his arm out but it was _stuck_ , it was stuck and all he could do was thrash on the floor, hear his body slam against the tiles and the wall, choke on the burning stench. He screamed for a while before they made him black out.

He left the vent alone after that. Mostly, he left it alone.

They had to be feeding him and watering him while he was out, because he didn’t feel hunger, or thirst, or a full bladder. And they must be cleaning him up, shaving him, trimming his hair. He supposed they were doing it so he couldn’t gauge time by things like his stubble, but the thought—the certainty—of them touching him made him sick. He tried to kick the thought away. It kept turning up like a bad penny.

His body changed on the inside. He lay on the cot and looked at the lighting strips on the ceiling, until his eyes burned and the thread of thoughts (twenty-four times, three hours, forty-five minutes, fifteen seconds, Brooklyn Steve War London Paris twenty-four times, three hours, forty-five minutes, thirty seconds) snapped, just for one moment. His head filled up with the places where the skin had melted, where the bones had settled into different shapes. Above him the lights turned blue, four parallel strips of sky, and in his new form he could crawl up the walls, squeeze through the gaps and fly away.

Sometimes the metal arm was there when he woke up.

Sometimes it wasn’t.

The first time it wasn’t, he peeled off the bandage on his shoulder. The gauze had been fixed with some kind of liquid; he ripped strips of skin away. The flesh on his shoulder still had metal embedded in it, edges buried deep, scraping bone and nerves when he tried to pull them out. There was a ring in the spot where the bone socket had been, like an open mouth full of steel fangs. Seams where his flesh had been sewn to the metal. He could smell disinfectant and cordite, a lingering trace of pus.

The times when the arm was there, he tried to figure it out. He tried, until his fingers were bruised and throbbing, to take it off. He tried, when that didn’t work, to learn how to use it. Flex. Pull. Twist. Bend. The metal fingers were the hardest part. The rest of the arm was mostly smooth and entirely cold. The fingers were clunky, like something from an _Amazing Stories_ cover. When he moved them they made little clicking noises, jerked out of his control.

One time he found himself scratching an itch on his wrist as he paced.

The left wrist, the one made of metal.

Just one time.

Three times. No more.

At least there was no pain, or at least not much. He could deal with it.

Just like he could deal with the itching, or the sensation that he’d been lying on his left arm a long time, and it was pin-and-needling back to life.

Fourth attempt: the walls again, but this time he was cleverer about it. He ripped the cot from its moorings on the floor, which was easy enough to do with the metal arm and a little effort, then dragged it as far back as he could before he rammed it full speed against the spot where the door (panel, opening, whatever) sat on the wall. Once, twice, three times, over and over until he lost count and his skin was slick with sweat, a vice of pain around the places in his left shoulder where the metal met flesh. One end of the cot was mangled, the metal frame twisted into an insect-like shape, the bare bones of some long-dead monster. The wall was covered with scuff marks, but that was all he’d achieved. Scuff marks. Not even a dent.

When he woke up again the marks on the wall were gone. The cot was intact again.

Everything he did was washed away.

Bad penny thoughts: his metal hand around Zola’s throat, squeezing. Zola’s feet dangling helplessly off the ground. Zola’s eyes bulging out, his tongue flicking about, the skin on his face purpling. The colours were vivid enough to make him sick.

Bucky knew he wasn’t supposed to enjoy it. He hadn’t enjoyed any of his kills, all as quick and clean as he could make them. Maybe the sad bastards he’d killed hadn’t deserved it, though given who and what they served, they probably had. Didn’t matter either way. It had all boiled down to him or them, Steve or them, the Commandos or them. It was a war. He’d had something to do, no matter how hard. And no matter how hard, he’d done it. He wasn’t supposed to enjoy it, but he was going to enjoy the look of surprise on Zola’s face, the noises he’d make as his windpipe was crushed. Sometimes Bucky let the bad penny thought turn up again and again until his mouth was full of rust and copper.

Fifth attempt, sixth attempt.

He sat on the floor and cursed himself for being too dumb to figure this out.

But he kept trying. At least he kept trying. At least no one would say that when—Hydra? the Nazis? the General? just Zola, keeping strange trophies in a secret room?—stuck James Buchanan Barnes in the hole, he didn’t do his damnedest to get the hell out. ‘Give you a medal for that alone,’ he told himself, and laughed.

He did laugh, sometimes. It never sounded good.

Hurting himself didn’t work. He tried enough times to know they would just knock him out and fix him.

Three other attempts taught him that sometimes the ceiling was also electrified. Sometimes.

Next attempt: breaking open the lighting strips in the ceiling and using the wires to start a fire. He tore a scrap of fabric off his pants to use as a makeshift torch, and when that didn’t take he tried pressing the thin mattress against the exposed wires. It didn’t work, but he knew it wouldn’t, he wasn’t an idiot: he needed fuel and he didn’t have any.

‘Unless that metal arm of yours is full of motor oil,’ his mouth said.

_Wouldn’t that be something._

_You could pull those wires up there and put them in your mouth._

Yeah, he could do that. This was probably real current, not whatever they were using to bat him around like a cat working over a mouse. It might very well kill him before they had enough time to get to him. Or one could hope, at least.

It’d mean pulling out the wires. Having to touch them.

‘You’re scared.’

_Am not._

‘What are you, eight years old? You’re backing away, you gotta be scared.’

‘Fine. I’m scared. I’m a huge scaredy-cat. I don’t wanna die. Are you happy now?’ he yelled at the walls. ‘ _Are you fucking happy?_ ’

The walls didn’t answer.

There was that sick-making hum of electricity starting up, but this time it wasn’t coming from the floor or the ceiling, this time it was coming from his goddamn _arm_ , and he tried screaming ‘I didn’t mean it! I didn’t mean it!’ but that didn’t stop them.

He tried just staying awake.

There had to be some kind of gas they were using to knock him out, something he couldn’t see or smell. It might be coming from the vent, but it couldn’t just be coming from there, because one time, even though he didn’t like going near the vent, he still covered it up with the mattress, and another time he took the white pyjama pants he always woke up with and wadded them up on the grille, and none of that made any difference.

Maybe the gas was coming in through tiny holes in the walls or the ceiling, too small for him to see. He knew there had to be holes because he tried covering up the dead eye lens on the wall so they couldn’t see what he was doing inside his cell but they always knew anyway.

The fourth time he covered up the lens the electricity came back on. He stopped doing it after that.

Maybe the metal arm had something inside that made him sleep, and that was why he woke up wearing it more and more. It was easier for them to do it that way. It wasn’t like he could pull the thing off. He’d tried.

He tried breathing only once every minute. He tried being so still and silent that maybe he could hear the hiss of the gas, smell the first whiff.

Didn’t work.

Sometimes he woke with his head throbbing and his skin clammy. There was a smell that clung to him for a while, almost too faint to detect. He wasn’t sure what it was. It was a little like the smell in a funeral home. The sweetness of overripe fruit. Sour milk. Whenever he smelled it after waking up he knew they had done something to him while he was out, something worse than usual.

Another attempt. He’d stopped counting them. He stood on the cot, smashed the glass cover on one of the lighting strips. Climbed down, riffled through the shards until he found, guiding himself by the cuts on his fingers, the sharpest one. Pressed it against his throat. Closed his eyes. Swallowed. Swallowed again, until his mouth was dry. Found enough guts somewhere. Pressed the shard a little deeper. Sliced.

If he’d been lucky enough not to die, he had planned—

_too chickenshit to die_

—to wake up in some kind of sick bay and take it from there. Instead he had woken up in the cell again. The lighting strips were intact. He couldn’t feel a scar in his throat, no matter how slowly he ran his fingertips over the skin.

The cell kept changing around him. He could tell because sometimes it was twelve feet long and sometimes it was eleven and a half. Sometimes the lens on the wall was a little off-centre, or higher than before. Sometimes he would gouge out marks on the underside of the cot, where no one could see, and when he woke up again they’d be gone.

Sometimes they’d still be there, though, so maybe he just imagined all that. Maybe he’d imagined cutting himself, too, dreaming awake. After all, the last thing he remembered just before he passed out had been lying on the floor, blood pooling underneath him, but instead of a bright arterial red it’d been black and thick as motor oil.

_You’ve been awake more than twenty-six times, haven’t you, Bucky? A lot more._

‘I’m sorry.’ He knelt, eyes closed, forehead pressed against the edge of the cot. He wasn’t sure what he was doing. Praying, maybe. ‘I’m not sure what it is I did, but whatever it was, I’m sorry. Please. Please get me out of here, and I promise…’

_What?_

_Don’t worry, kiddo, I’ll write to you every chance I get._

_I’m with you till the end of the line, pal._

_I’m sorry, Dad. I promise I won’t get into so much trouble anymore._

Hadn’t he always broken all his promises?

Once he sat on the cot, careful not to put his bare feet on the floor, and saw a shape dart under the skin of his ankle. He picked at the skin until it tore. The shape wriggled under the metal fingers. Something poked out of the flesh. He pulled at it. It was an insect wing, blood-stained.

He wasn’t asleep, just dreaming awake.

He was dead. Maybe when you died you didn’t go anywhere and you didn’t just rot. Maybe instead you got stuck. You got stuck in a little room like this one, and you spoke to other dead people for a while until they too fell silent. None of this was real. He could see himself, pinned to a cork. Trapped under a pane of glass.

Maybe dying didn’t end you, it just drove you mad.

***

‘Sergeant.’

It took him a few seconds to realise the voice in the speaker was real. At first he thought it was only a burst of static, the metal groaning, his mind filling the silence.

‘Sergeant.’

***

‘I am very glad to see you have decided not to be so stubborn anymore.’

They hadn’t made him black out. They had given him something that made him unable to move, but they hadn’t made him black out. He’d floated above his motionless, unfeeling body as it was wheeled into a room, trying to retain enough presence of mind to memorise the place’s layout. It was difficult: everything was both foggy and too bright, left and right swaying back and forth, swirls of fluorescent light. Much easier to just float, even if he tried his hardest not to.

The room he was in now was friendlier (than what?). It smelled of cigarette smoke, not disinfectant. There were only a few people, tables bearing strange instruments made of metal and glass. In the middle there was a dentist’s chair, and they hauled his dead weight onto it. There were all kinds of screens and panels full of fiddly buttons around it. Maybe it was going to take flight.

‘Fortunately you only delayed us a few days before deciding to cooperate, that’s very good.’ Zola, flipping switches as he talked. Zola, it was always Zola. _Not a few days. Didn’t. Not cooperating._ Bucky couldn’t flinch or pull away, not with his body turned to concrete and jelly—

But it was—

Another person’s voice. Flesh and blood. Zola’s. It was still… soothing. Something.

Not crazy. Not yet.

English. The people in the room were speaking in English, more or less. ‘—more minutes until we can start calibration—’ ‘—titrate the suxamethonium—’ Machines hummed away while things were done to Bucky’s body, needles sunk into his skin, electrodes taped to his chest, his face. The man who did that didn’t look at him. He was fastening the wires to something invisible. Threads of silver light glinted off his hair.

The chair’s head-rest was pulled back and his gaze landed on a row of clocks just below the ceiling. A painted shape sat in the middle, maybe an eagle, maybe just an eddy of black stains and lines. The letters underneath stilled, swam, stilled; they wouldn’t settle enough for him to read them. In the corner, almost out of sight—

An edge of fabric. Stars and stripes.

_Stars and stripes!_

A machine beeped faster. There was a swirl of words he didn’t understand. Was he home? God, was he _home_? He remembered shipping out and Italy and Azzano and the things after Azzano and Austria and Germany but then there was a blank there was _nothing_ no not nothing little flashes hurt like needles glass shards and God if only he could _think_ …

_Zola is evil. Zola is evil. Zola did this to you and he is evil. Don’t trust Zola._

His fingers twitched. Sensation was trickling back. He tried to move his head, but it had been wedged in place. He hadn’t felt the restraints being applied.

‘Oh, Sergeant, please try to calm down.’ Zola stepped in front of him and drew a cigarette from his pocket. He stood so close Bucky could see his colourless eyes behind the wire-frame glasses. ‘You are breathing so fast you are going to do yourself an injury. Perhaps a little puff of smoke will make you feel a little better…’ He paused, shook his head to himself and put the cigarette away. ‘No, it is not too healthy for you. This—’ He stepped out of sight. When he returned he held a syringe in his hand and grabbed a loop of tubing connected to Bucky’s arm. ‘—is better.’ In went the needle. ‘Don’t worry, in a few moments you will be feeling much better. Very relaxed.’

_No. No no no no no._

‘His metabolism is too fast for the scopolamine, Professor,’ a voice said where Bucky couldn’t see. ‘Should we—’

‘No, no, that won’t be necessary for now,’ Zola said, and turned back to him. ‘You are going to behave, aren’t you, Sergeant?’

He wanted to say _screw you_ , but he could barely even think it. The familiar hum of electricity started up and he didn’t need either fear or pain darting through him—by now his body clenched on its own, by instinct. Only his flesh was dead, numb except for the frantic twitch of his fingers. His eyes moved so fast the room turned into a blur.

‘Oh no, please don’t cry, it is very embarrassing.’ Zola patted his knee awkwardly. Bucky’s eyes stilled. He stared at Zola’s face, unable to blink. He could feel the air struggling to enter his lungs, could hear each pained wheeze. His own flesh was choking him. ‘Come, to look at you one would think we were some kind of, of evil-doers who kidnapped you from your bed. But in reality you have been treated very nicely, especially considering how badly you have behaved. You should have been resting in your bed so you’d be ready for all the things we have to do, instead of all the foolishness you’ve been—’

He was drowning. His vision tunnelled.

‘Sergeant, _calm yourself_.’

A direct command, even in that voice. His breathing slowed a fraction.

There was a shrill whistle. Bucky recognised it as a telephone’s ring with only some difficulty.

The room quietened. The loudest sounds were his gasps.

‘Yes, he is here. Professor.’

‘One minute,’ Zola said, now busy doing something to Bucky’s chest and head. He could no longer hear his breathing. Instead his head filled with rhythmic thumps as Zola walked away.

‘Hello? Yes, this is him. … No, we have not begun yet, we are still doing all the preparation work.’

 _Thump. Thump_. He stared at the clocks, stared at the button-covered panels in front of him, where he could almost see his own reflection.

‘Yes, I think it is safe to assume— Oh, as far as the General is concerned, I imagine he thinks we are in Odessa. …’

 _Think. Thump. Thump. God,_ think _. Thump. Thump._ The room was full of Americans but Zola was talking about Odessa.

‘Yes, I see. …. Ha, that would be very amusing. … No, Director Carter would have to authorise it, I believe it has been brought to her attention already. … No, no, Mr Stark’s input would not be necessary for that. … Yes? … Oh no, most cooperative, I have administered his pre-op injection already and—’

_Director Carter. Mr Stark._

_Director Carter? Director Carter??_

‘—not until the animal tests, no. … Yes, I will believe it when I see it. … And very much the same to you, good-bye!’

_Director Carter and Mr Stark???_

“Pre-op”?

Had Zola said “pre-op”?

Thoughts fired inside his skull. _Director Carter could be anyone! Lots of people named Carter! But he said Stark!_ Zola’s face appeared in front of him again, filling up the world.

‘Let us not waste time, Sergeant. We are all nice and ready.’

‘Sta,’ Bucky managed to dribble out, barely a sound. There must be drool spilling down his chin, but he couldn’t feel it.

‘Start, yes, we will start,’ Zola said, then frowned before looking pleased again. ‘Oh, you mean “Stark”! I had forgotten you know Miss Carter and Mr Stark. Yes, your friends are very pleased with the project.’

 _Thump. Thump._ They couldn’t know. It was all some big con. _Thump. Thump._ Only… how had he ended up here?

Zola turned around. ‘You can start the film camera.’ He stepped aside and lowered an articulated lever. In the gaps between the instruments Bucky could see another blind black eye, staring at him. _Thump. Thump. Thump._

‘Conditioning and calibration session zero-zero-two-alpha, beginning at sixteen hundred hours and—oh, twenty five minutes,’ Zola said, not to him. ‘Followed by modulation of amygdalic activity, followed by bilateral and bifrontal sinewave stimulation.’

There was a needle on the tip of the lever, pointed right at his face. Bucky tried to look away, but his eyes were slack now. Whatever Zola had given him had turned his body into dead meat again. Only his breath quickened, out of his control. The camera whirred and clicked away.

Zola turned around and guided the needle closer and closer to his face, until the silver tip was in front of his right eye. It looked as big as a razor blade. Bucky tried to blink, but it was too late for that. Another pair of hands—not Zola’s—pushed two clamps against the edges of his eye; he could feel his eyelids being stretched.

‘I am afraid I will have to inject the paralytic into your eyes. Do not worry, you will not feel a thing.’

 _Please_ , he tried to say. His tongue and throat betrayed him. Only half a word came out, garbled. Zola leaned down towards him. Bucky could smell the faint aroma of tobacco and soap clinging to his skin.

‘“Please”? Don’t be tiresome, Sergeant,’ Zola said, then straightened up and nodded. Another pair of rubber-gloved hands pushed Bucky’s lips open and slid a tube into his mouth, stilling his tongue. His throat filled with a sweet, chemical taste.

 _Thumpthumpthump._ The needle moved towards his eye.

He was breathing so fast he should have blacked out for everything that happened after that, but he wasn’t that lucky.

***

Fire.

Red.

The images stuck even as they dissolved into linoleum, bare walls. The things he saw couldn’t be real, though, because booted feet stepped right through them, through spatters of brain matter and bloodied hair clumping in drain holes. Not real. Just pictures. Not real.

He was being carried. No. He was walking. Half-walking, half-dragging. Dark shapes of guns on the two men pulling him forward. He could do something to them if he wanted to. He was sure of it. Something. Couldn’t remember what. Pain started to seep in, grinding, gnawing. That made it even harder to think. Harder, even if the blood—not real, _not_ real, not _real_ —on the walls was fading.

They put him in a room. He didn’t remember the room, but when they let him go and he fell to his knees he knew straight away there was something wrong with the floor. It looked normal. He still had to get out of it. He crawled over to the bed. Hands off the—

_GET OFF IT_

—floor. He had to get his hands off the floor because when he looked at his skin he saw it blister and crack. Not real. That was also Not Real.

‘Help him onto the bed.’

The men rolled him up (faces, he didn’t want to look at their faces) and lifted him onto the bed. He didn’t care about that. He cared about the voice. He knew the voice. He knew the accent (accent?). And then he didn’t care about the voice anymore. He was going to throw up. Bile burned the back of his throat. When it happened he was going to puke a kidney, a chunk of liver.

A lung.

A heart.

He didn’t vomit. He just spewed out a string of yellowish fluid. Snot-like, not snot. It dribbled down his chin, splattered on his neck. Burned his nose and made him cough. That was all. He knew he ought to move, even if he didn’t know why. All his body managed to do was lie still and hurt. He patted his head. A bulky bandage sat around it.

Surgery. Hospital.

His left arm was made of metal. It had always been made of metal.

The men didn’t look like hospital orderlies, they looked like guards. Guns holstered, but ready to spring out. Shoot. (Bite.)

‘How are you feeling, Sergeant?’

Sergeant! Yes, a military hospital.

There had been uniforms in the pictures, weapons.

He recognised the doctor who stood over him.

He was called—

‘Hurt me,’ his mouth squeezed out.

The doctor smiled. ‘I should hope that was a complaint and not a request, Sergeant!’

He was called—

‘But rest assured that we have not hurt you,’ the doctor went on. ‘All the procedures were necessary and you will feel better from now on. And you will also no longer hurt yourself, or want to hurt yourself, or disobey direct orders. There are some things about you that make you different from everyone else, that is why you volunteered, why you are such a good candidate for the project. Unfortunately there were also some… abnormalities we needed to correct. Now that is all over. Isn’t it wonderful?’

Wonderful, yes.

 _Zola!_ The doctor’s name was Zola. He had done something to him. Something.

‘I know you must feel very, ah—nauseous, and there might perhaps be some pain,’ the doctor said, and leaned down. Tufts of dirt-blond hair, steel-blue eyes behind round glasses. Pudgy face, starting to get lined with age.

He could smell something but it wasn’t coming from the doctor, it was coming from him. Vomit and bleach.

The pictures were back. Blood haloes. Skin tearing. Everything went away when he blinked. The doctor was still right. There was something wrong with him. He took the pills from the other man’s palm. Said ‘Thank you.’

_Zola. Zolazolazola. Don’t trust him._

_???_

‘Oh, you are most welcome.’ The doctor sounded happy. He knew he wanted the doctor to sound happy. It reassured him as much as the pills. They’d left a bitter taste in his mouth. He’d had to chew and swallow them without—

_a glass remember a glass the glass_

—water, but he could feel them working already, melting the pain away. He could think better now.

_Bucky._

The word went up like a flare inside the blackness in his mind, where the bad things must have been. Bucky. That was—his name?

‘We will leave you to rest, Sergeant.’ The doctor had walked away to the door. Bucky— _Bucky, Bucky, my name is Bucky yes_ —wanted to raise his head to see him leave. It was too heavy. ‘You should have a nice long sleep.’

_Sometime._

‘You will not be making a nuisance of yourself after we went through all this trouble with you, will you?’

No. No no no. He would be good. He wanted to be good.

The doctor and the two (orderlies)(guards) men left. The door slammed shut behind them.

He closed his eyes. No, he couldn’t sleep. He stared at the single lamp hanging from the ceiling. The pills took away the pain, and that made him—

That made him—

_Bucky. Buck. Buchanan. James Buchanan something. Baines? Barnes._

He got up, but his body only half-obeyed him. He slammed knees-first on the floor instead. The pain was dulled, a slow burst of deep purple. White flickered behind his eyelids. He understood there was an emptiness. A space. A chasm, inside his head. They had reached in and cut things off until he could only feel the edges. They throbbed like bad teeth.

If he pulled the bandage away his head would break apart, spill onto the floor in a thousand pieces.

‘God. Oh god.’

He saw himself, sitting on the floor and drawing quick little panicked breaths. It didn’t bother him that much. It was like the pictures, barbed wire thorns sinking into eyeballs and tongues, loops of intestine spilling from open bellies. They were bad, the things inside, very bad, but they couldn’t touch him. Couldn’t.

He watched as the body staggered to its feet, swayed, and hobbled towards a wall. The metal arm hung limply at the body’s side. It couldn’t be moved. The body— _he_ fell again, this time on his butt, said ‘ow’, and hiccuped.

The wall. The wall was blank. It was off-white and the whole inside of his head was black, as black as it got. He had to take the things out while he still could. Pin them to the wall so he would remember.

His fingers tightened on the metal arm. It might be useless, but there were edges. Sharp enough that if he pressed hard enough he could rip the skin of his palm open, gauge bloody furrows on the mound of flesh at the base of his thumb.

The first thing on the wall was a red palm print. He got the hang of it soon enough, making more slices in his hand and arm when he needed more ink. The letters were loopy, shaky, switched, upside down. It didn’t matter. Names, dates, places. _New York. James Buchanan Barnes. 22 December._ His birthday? _Gabe. Wendy._ He wasn’t sure who Gabe was, but Wendy was his mother, he remembered he had a mother. _Brooklyn. War. Cyclone. Flying car. Brushes. George._

_The doctor’s name is Zola._

_They do things to you._

_Steve. Steven Grant Rogers._

_Steve is coming for you._

He had filled almost a quarter of the wall by the time he heard the crying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In some of the comics Bucky’s arm attaches directly to skin, but in the MCU it looks like a series of shoulder/chest/back muscles have been sliced right through, given the scarring we see in CA:TWS, so I have the arm attach to a metal socket embedded in Bucky’s shoulder. I’m sure the Hydra scientists could improve on that, but since it would be purely for Bucky’s benefit they don’t exactly, you know, care. Electroshock/electroconvulsive therapy (note that, as per standard medical procedure IRL, Zola has administered it with Bucky under anaesthesia and with the aid of muscle relaxants… this time) does indeed frequently cause memory loss, but this tends to affect just the memories from the weeks/months preceding the treatment, and there is typically gradual improvement afterwards. However, Zola is using doses and techniques—like having simultaneous bilateral and bifrontal placing of the electrodes, not to mention doing a bunch of sf procedures at the same time—that would probably give Bucky massive brain damage if it weren’t for the protective effects of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Super-Soldier Serum. Bucky’s mother is called Winifred in the comics, so Wendy sounded like a reasonable family nickname, following the release of _Peter Pan_ in 1904. Bucky’s birthday, both in the MCU and the comics, is on the 10th of March, btw.


	5. Reflexive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Russian translations in this chapter were kindly provided by **boot_from_cd** and **alley_skywalker** , with additional comments and suggestions by **irien24** , **liilliil** , **migmit** , and **sandwichwarrior**. Thank you all for your help!
> 
> This chapter’s illustration is by **dark_roast** , click on the picture to go to her art post.

**5\. Reflexive**

It was soft. At first, he wondered if it was just the buzzing of a fly, the sound of pipes settling down. After a short while, though, it was clear it was a person, maybe a child. It was coming from the other wall. He got up—stronger, he was getting stronger—and moved towards it.

The crying wafted up from a vent. He knew he shouldn’t go near it. The knot of ice in his stomach told him something very bad would happen if he went near it.

He couldn’t help himself. He had to do something. If he didn’t, the crying would rattle inside his eggshell skull until his head broke open. He kneeled on the floor by the vent. Blood dripped from his hand and splashed on the floor in a strange pattern.

Nothing bad happened. His heart quietened, just a little. The crying grew louder, bounced off the vent’s sides. It was a child for sure. Bucky edged as close to the vent as he could. ‘Hello?’

The weeping stopped for a few seconds, then started up again, lower than before.

‘Can you hear me?’

The voice from the wall didn’t answer, but he was sure now that it was a child, probably a little girl. Children didn’t belong here. He wasn’t sure what _here_ was—it was some kind of hospital, and it was _familiar_ —but he knew there shouldn’t be any children here.

‘ _Peux-tu m’entendre?_ ’ he said. ‘ _Kannst du mich hören?_ ’ He knew left from right, he knew the sun rose in the East, he knew how to say those things and what they meant.

The girl in the vent whispered. He swallowed and put his ear as close to the cover as he dared.

‘Help me.’ The words were punctuated by an echoing rattle, as though something was moving about far below. ‘Help me.’

‘I’ll help you, OK?’ he said into the vent, hoping it was loud enough and his voice wasn’t shaking too hard for her to hear. ‘Don’t be scared. Just stay put and I’ll find you.’

The weeping started again, more desperate this time. Maybe the Bad Thing the vent did was happening, but it was happening to her instead of him. ‘You can’t—you can’t do that,’ he cried out at the ceiling. ‘You can’t keep children in here, just…’

… _people like me_.

He had to go to the door. He had to go to the door and open it and step out. He had to find the little girl. He stood up, wobbly, took one, two, three steps towards the door. Ice coiled in the small of his back. Open the door. It’s no big deal. Open the door. Try the lock. He reached out towards it. His hand shook so bad it sprayed dollops of blood. Open the door. His heart raced. Open—

When he touched it, the door swung open with a little squeak of metal. He staggered out. He couldn’t feel his body again, which was good, but he had to hold on to the walls for balance, which was bad. His hand left a streak of blood behind it.

The corridor outside branched into three other corridors. He peered into one. More corridors, all the same beige walls and linoleum floor.

His palm itched. When he glanced at it he saw a big strip of skin hanging down to his wrist, pink-streaked with blood, exposing a patch of flesh. A swell of nausea rose into his throat.

The metal arm was still useless, a load pulling him out of balance, but with some effort he managed to catch the end of the skin flap with the fingers of his right hand. He tugged, and winced at the sting as the skin began to rip free. It sloughed off, nearly translucent. He looked down as the skin dropped to the floor. More patches had begun to peel off; he could feel them itch, see the spots where they’d stained his hospital clothes. He took off his pyjama top, very carefully, then began working on the loose skin on his stomach and his right shoulder.

There were barbs under the exposed flesh. He tugged on one and felt the joint in his shoulder grind and shift. The barb began to slide out. He could feel it tear through his muscles. It felt like a bone splinter but it was black, and sharp. It twitched against his fingers as he tried to dig it out…

***

‘… clean it up.’

He blinked. He was in the room. The door was closed.

It was the doctor who’d spoken, from a screen in the wall. The picture was fuzzy.

He—

How did he—

 _James. Something_. The thought floated up through fog, then burst. _Buck_.

‘Clean it up.’

Somewhere else. He had been—

His neck bent down, slow with rust. There was a bucket of water, a sponge. Under the light the film of soap on the water shimmered like dragonfly wings.

He turned back to the doctor on the screen, uncomprehending. The doctor told him things, at least. He was sure the doctor told him things.

‘You have spoiled your room, like a little child, or an animal,’ the doctor said. He (another balloon-thought: _Bucky. Zola._ Pop.) looked around.

A wall was spattered with red paint. Only it wasn’t paint, it was blood. His blood. He had put the words on the wall because they had stolen them out of his head.

He got to his feet, still swaying but suddenly strong with rage. ‘What did you do to me? _Where’s the girl_?’

The doctor— _Zola, he’s Zola_ —frowned. ‘What girl?’

‘Don’t lie! I know who you are, Zola. You—’ That tug at the edge of a black hole again. God, why couldn’t he _remember_? ‘You’ve done things to me. You’re keeping me here and…’

The vent. The vent where he’d heard the girl. It was gone.

He looked around the room frantically, as though that would make the vent show up, but of course it didn’t. There was no vent. No girl. No corridors. There was only the room.

 _No. No_. His head hurt. He reached up to touch the bandage but there was no bandage. His fingers probed around his scalp, looking for a wound, a scar, but there wasn’t any. ‘You… operated on me. Did some kind of surgery.’

God, he had to _think_.

‘Do not be absurd, Sergeant. You invented it all,’ Zola— _but is his name really Zola?_ —said. ‘Not on purpose, of course. It is what we call a delusion. Your mind is sick and therefore invented this surgery and this… girl. It is the same, ah—problem that led you to deface the wall. Rest assured that it is for your own good that you should clean it up.’ The doctor leaned forward and his black and white face almost filled the screen. ‘Come, now. I am asking you to do something very easy. Simply pick up the—’

He didn’t hear the rest of the doctor’s sentence. Pain shot up his left shoulder, dull at first, then sharpening to razor edges. He was on fire. He couldn’t breathe. He dropped to the floor, air escaping his throat.

‘What’s wrong?’ Zola said.

The pain snaked around his throat. He squirmed on the floor. The room was spinning, his vision turning black. He tried to get the metal arm off, before it burned a hole through his flesh, but his hand right hand just clenched uselessly, the skin stained red. ‘I can’t—’ he spluttered. He was going to pass out.

‘Breathe, Sergeant,’ the doctor said. ‘Relax.’

He gasped, helpless. ‘I—I can—’

‘You can if you simply calm yourself.’

A big gulp of air rushed into his lungs. The pain still crushed him like a vice but it receded a little, gave him room to breathe. Air wheezed in. He gulped it so fast he felt even more light-headed than before.

‘Please calm down, Sergeant.’ Zola sounded very calm himself. ‘Count to three before you release each breath. One, two, three, very simple. One, two, three. Yes, that is it. Just one, two, three.’

He couldn’t help but follow the doctor’s instructions. It was easy. Air filled his lungs again. The pain began to fade, until it was only a grind in his left shoulder, under the metal. ‘What did you do to me?’

‘Me? Come, Sergeant, clearly I have done nothing. You could see me all along. In fact, I have almost never touched you since the day you volunteered.’

‘You used some switch or…’ He trailed off, swallowed. His lungs still ached. He hadn’t seen Zola press any buttons, but that didn’t mean anything—did it? He looked at the metal arm, as though the answer would inscribe itself there in fire letters, but of course there was nothing. Only mute steel.

His head. Something had happened to his head.

‘Sergeant, you are sick. You know that it is healthy to listen to me but all the—problems in your mind will not allow you to do so. The conflict creates the nervous reaction. It is called a psychosomatic phenomenon. It means your mind creates the physical effect. But it is all imaginary, Sergeant.’ He stopped to light a cigarette. ‘Now. I am telling you this as a scientist and as someone who very much wants you to become healthy. For your sake, Sergeant, clean it up.’

He shook his head.

The doctor took a puff of his cigarette, unhurried. ‘We can be here all day, Sergeant.’

It didn’t take all day. He wasn’t sure how long it took. His eyes stung. His head was hollow. Holey. His body ached, but not so much that he couldn’t bear it, not so much that he couldn’t have held on not to so much that he shouldn’t have _shut up shut up just shut up_. His hand shook and the letters swam in and out of sight as he ran the wet sponge over them. Pink rivulets dripped to the floor.

He was sick. Not sick to his stomach (although he was). Not feverish (although he was). Just sick.

‘You see how reasonable you can be, Sergeant?’ the doctor said.

***

They kept taking things from him. He would wake up with new holes inside his head, as though his memories were a moth-eaten fabric. He dragged himself to the wall, filled it with his blood again. Each word a fragment, and the words didn’t connect because the fragments didn’t connect. City streets. _New York?_ Girl. _Sister?_ Steve, he remembered Steve, only sometimes he was a little boy lying on a hospital bed, face flushed, hands pale as the sheets, and sometimes he was a grown man and he—

_barnes bucky barnes james buchanan barnes come on remember hold on to that_

—was the one lying down and burning up. Black and white. _Real?_ Brushing someone’s hair, brown and long. _Real, maybe?_ Going over a ball game play by play, even all the stuff the Lip (who?) had said. _Why?_ He couldn’t come. _Where? Who??_ He switched on the radio, but it wasn’t a radio, it was a Victrola, and it was in London. _London? Real?_

He put it all on the walls with the ink he got from his flesh. Sometimes he couldn’t turn the little pieces into words and sometimes the words didn’t link up together, like pieces from ten different puzzles, but he had to do it. If he did it, he could stitch it all up together later. If he did it, every time he woke up with another hole inside his head maybe he could look at the wall and find something to fill it up.

He had come from somewhere. He hadn’t been in this room forever.

_Real?_

Sometimes he woke up with straps holding him in place. Gloved fingers pushed pills into his mouth.

They were for his own good. He would feel better after taking them.

They left a bitter taste in his tongue and after he swallowed them the things on the wall floated away like balloons.

***

He could think clearly. For once he could think clearly.

‘Come on.’

He could hear someone crying, in another cell. He would get them out and then they would get away from here.

He used his hand, the metal one, the strong one, to break the lock on the door, then stepped into the corridor outside. He was weak—something he didn’t remember had been done to him and his muscles felt like jelly—but if he just kept staggering forward, he would make it. He knew he would make it.

‘Hang on,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll come get you. Just hang on.’

The corridors looped in on each other, led only to dead ends. He tried to guide himself by the crying, but it had turned into whimpering now, barely audible, and he was no longer standing but crawling, and after a while he was still.

_Come on. Think. You can still think._

There was a wetness in his ear. He touched it and his fingers came down smeared with red.

‘Can you hear me?’ his voice was hoarse, as though he hadn’t used it in a very long time. ‘If you can hear me, please answer me!’ he shouted. Might as well shout.

A crackle started up in the floor in front of him.

He jerked backwards, struck the wall, then crawled away as fast as he could. He could barely use his limbs and didn’t know where he was in the maze, but he had left a trail of bloodspots on the floor. He scrambled to follow those, his flesh turned to jelly. The hum in the floor and walls crept just behind him. Darts of pain hit his feet and hand. He tried to go faster, faster, fast, so hard he has scraping his skin on the floor, but it wasn’t fast enough.

The door. The room. He dragged himself forward, bruised his elbow, gouged his flesh when his arm hit a corner. The crackle was coming, right behind him. He could feel the fire licking his skin.

He rolled inside the room and waited on the floor for it to start, for his flesh to burn, for him to smell hot metal and singed hair.

There was nothing. It was safe in here. It was safe.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry.’

***

‘Clean it up.’

This time his metal arm started to thrum, then nausea and a burning sensation shot through his body.

Good. He liked it better like this. It didn’t take him long to beg the doctor to stop—‘Only two minutes of you being stubborn, Sergeant. This is good. You are improving.’—but at least when he ran the wet sponge across the wall, hand still trembling, and the words started to drip into nothing, at least he knew he hadn’t done it just because the doctor had asked him to.

***

He came to on an examination table. People in masks and gloves started to cut his clothes away. He tried to cover himself up, but his hands barely obeyed him. His right hand must be drugged. His metal one, rusty.

‘Please,’ the doctor said, out of sight, his voice pursed with disapproval. ‘What a perversion, to think we would be in any way interested in looking at you during a medical procedure. You are very sick, Sergeant.’

He was given no space to feel shame, if he even could. Electrode leads were being stuck to his skin, clamps and probes fixed to his body, everywhere. He was sure he could even feel them inside, digging in cold and painful.

Screens fenced him in. He could only move his head a little, but his eyes rolled frantically from side to side. There were screens showing a grey maze inside a whitish oval, screens with block patterns, screens with moving squiggly green lines.

The screen right in front of his eyes flickered once and showed a picture of a dark-haired woman. Maybe a good-looking woman, but the thought was laughable down here.

 _I know_ … But the thought sank. He didn’t think he knew who she was.

‘Do you recognise this woman?’ the doctor asked.

‘No,’ he said.

The picture on the screen changed. ‘Do you recognise this man?’

‘No.’

The pictures kept changing. A dog. A sheep carcass. A girl at the beach. ‘Have you ever been here?’ ‘Do you like this picture?’ ‘Do you know what this is?’ ‘Does this picture scare you?’

The dark-haired woman again.

‘Have you seen this woman before?’

‘No.’

‘Lie,’ the doctor said.

Stinging pain ripped through his body. He jerked against the restraints. Cries clotted in his throat, but only a whimper squeezed out. The green lines in one of the screens turned to panicked spikes.

The pain receded. He could breathe again, see again.

_But I didn’t know her._

_Have you seen her. In the picture before. Have you seen her._

‘Do you recognise this picture?’

_Steve?_

‘Yes!’

‘Lie.’

Pain again. Longer this time, he was sure. By the time it was over his breath came in little ragged gasps.

‘Do you like this picture?’

It was a picture of a room. Just an ordinary room.

‘Sergeant, please answer. Do you like this picture?’

‘I don’t know,’ he whispered.

The picture on the screen changed. Tears prickled his eyes.

The pain came again a few pictures later, when he said that a picture of an eye being sliced by a razor blade disturbed him. He was sure he had told the truth, but he must not have. The doctor could see his thoughts, spilled out on the screens.

‘There is a number and a letter in the screen in front of you,’ the doctor said.

The screen was blank.

 _Oh god. Where is it?_ ‘Where.’ He hadn’t meant for the word to drop out of his mouth.

‘Right in front of you, Sergeant.’ The doctor sounded a little testy. ‘Please read the number.’

He tried to move his head but it was stuck to the table, a useless lump like the rest of his body. He tried looking sideways, up and down, as far as he could, but he could only see the edge of a screen placed above and behind him, and the very bottom of white shapes on the black background. ‘I can’t. I can’t see.’ Even his tongue wouldn’t obey him.

Cross-talk.

‘It is perfectly visible, Sergeant,’ the doctor said. He didn’t sound pleased, and bad things happened when the doctor wasn’t pleased. ‘We can all see it quite clearly. Please don’t be stubborn.’

No, he didn’t want to be stubborn. He didn’t he didn’t he didn’t. ‘Three,’ he said, finally. His vision was hazy. The number might as well be floating in front of him.

‘Lie.’

***

His face was slippery with cold sweat. He wanted to wipe it away, but he couldn’t do that and clean the wall at the same time. His arm and hand, the flesh ones (the weak ones) shook so bad he kept spilling water on the floor.

‘You are going to be very good for us, aren’t you?’ the doctor asked. ‘We won’t need to correct you again. You want to get better.’

He didn’t care about getting better. He just didn’t want to go in the dark room again.

The room had made him beg even if he couldn’t even hear his own voice in there.

***

The screen showed him films of someone who looked like him. The man who looked like him was wearing thin cotton pyjamas and he looked like a ghost.

It mustn’t be him because nothing ever happened to the man on the screen. He just sat on a bed in a room. Sometimes he stood in the middle of the room.

The man on the screen would stare and stare and stare, blinking once in a while, while the clock hands spun.

***

Pictures flickered in front of him. He was on a table (again?). The doctor asked him questions, on and on and on. ‘How many people are in this picture?’ ‘Read the second letter on the screen.’ ‘Does the woman in this picture remind you of anyone?’ ‘Does this picture make you feel disgust?’ ‘Is the boy in this picture wearing a white shirt?’ ‘Is the boy in this picture frightened?’ ‘Are you frightened right now?’

The pain would come and go. It was becoming familiar.

‘In this picture, do you— _Ach je_.’ The doctor sounded disgusted. ‘Sergeant, we do not need to know how much you are enjoying this. Try to control yourself.’

_Enjoying—?_

There was chatter from the doctor’s table. ‘—did consider sexual pathology.’ The doctor spoke to him again, the disgust only slightly muted. ‘We will correct it along with your other abnormal responses, Sergeant.’

_God, what does he see—_

Everything. The doctor saw everything. Every thought, spread and splayed out on the screens.

_Enjoying?_

He couldn’t see his own body. Was he… flushing? God, was it worse than flushing, was he—

He _was_ enjoying it, wasn’t he? A little bit. When the pain went out and then when it came back again. He must be.

The shame stung harder than the shocks.

The pictures blurred together. Mouths melted into dark holes, bones turned black with mould. His body rocked once in a while, but he wasn’t on the table anymore. He lay on his stomach, and a hand was rubbing gentle circles between his shoulder blades. _It’s all right, Bucky. It’s all right_.

He remembered now. He had forgotten, because he was bad, but he remembered now. This used to happen, when he’d been small and upset, or ill, or had a bad day, or she (who?) had had a bad day. It was safe. Everything would be fine.

_Dad?_

He sat up. ‘You really let me down,’ his father said, voice still a little tender, as he turned away. He (Bucky, he had to hold on to the name) had to stop him from going. He had to tell his father that something terrible would happen if he went. _Dad. Don’t go. I’m sorry. I’ll do better. Don’t go_. He had to save—

His father turned around.

Instead of a face there was only smooth, featureless skin, two ragged holes where the eyes should be.

He wasn’t screaming any more. He was in a maze, in the middle of a snare of windowless corridors.

‘Do it, Sergeant,’ the doctor’s voice said, but he couldn’t tell where it was coming from. A growl rang out, only a thin wall away. He started to run.

The growl gave chase, faster and faster, closer and closer.

The screens flickered in front of him. Water dripped down the glass.

The growl caught up with him. It was a dog, big as a horse, fangs wet with spittle. It jumped on him, dragged him to the floor. The metal hand fastened around the dog’s neck. ‘Do it.’ There was a whimper and a snap of bone. The sound made him sick.

He was on the chair again, the one where they stilled his eyes and his mind and put things in his head, things that made him throw up. There were no needles this time, no pictures. The doctor stood in front of him, at the head of a row of white coats who looked on, the bottom halves of their faces hidden by masks.

‘Do you finally understand how simple it is, Sergeant?’ the doctor said, and wheeled a tray closer to him. On the tray there was a silver dome, a small porcelain jug with a spoon. ‘Things that don’t work get broken. However, when things work well, it is time for a reward.’ He reached down to lift the dome.

He (bucky bucky bucky) expected organs, a severed head. Instead there was a fat slice of chocolate cake, the kind with frosting and a cherry on top. He felt hunger; it rattled somewhere in his belly, unfamiliar. The doctor spooned out a generous dollop of whipped cream from the jar, and set the plate on his knees.

There was a metal fork. He reached out for it, his hand shaking. He was going to stab the doctor with it.

Instead he used it to slice through the cake.

Something scuttled inside the chocolate sponge. Seconds later an insect crawled out, then another. Spiders spilled onto the china plate.

The doctor smiled.

***

‘It’s not real.’

He was in the room, lying on the bed and staring at the door.

He was holding something in his metal hand. He could feel a slight pressure in the palm. He opened his fist. A cherry rolled out, glossy red, fell off the mattress, and landed on the floor with a soft little plop.

‘It’s not real.’

The girl in the walls was crying again. No, not crying, making soft sobbing sounds, like an animal that knew no one was coming to release it from its trap.

‘It’s not real.’

He rolled onto his side. There was a loose thread on the edge of the mattress. He picked at it until he’d pulled a hole in the fabric.

‘It’s not real.’

[ ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2515286)

***

He ran and ran and ran, in the dark. There were obstacles he had to avoid and he could mostly feel them before they struck him. When he reached the end—a wall; there was no way around the wall—the doctor’s voice poured down from the ceiling.

‘You did very well, Sergeant. Six kilometres in a little over eight minutes. We will improve on that, of course, and you still don’t know how to balance your artificial arm, but for now it is excellent.’

_Six kilometres? Not a straight line. Circles. I’ve been running in—_

Fog. He was taken to the doctor. The fog was still dispelling as the doctor talked to him. He had trouble keeping the room from spinning.

‘You see how much better you feel like when we all work together?’ the doctor said, and injected something into his thigh.

He did feel better. Good, almost.

***

Sometimes it was the bad needle.

***

The pills, one round, one oblong, were in front on him, sitting in a little paper cup. He opened his mouth for them.

_You won’t give us any trouble, will you?_

It was the doctor’s voice, but no one was speaking. He looked up at the person feeding him the pills. He wore glasses, a surgical mask covering his face. Between the cap and the mask, behind the lenses, there were the doctor’s eyes (maybe), but that didn’t mean anything. The doctor saw everything, was everywhere.

He didn’t swallow the pills. He chewed them, and they left a sticky trail of powder on his tongue.

‘Can you make her be quiet?’

The two guards looked at him. ‘что?’ one said.

‘Ты можешь приказать ей замолчать?’ he repeated. He didn’t remember learning how to understand the words or how to say them, but he remembered so little now.

The girl was crying again. It made his bones hurt.

He just wanted her to be quiet.

As the guards walked away, his mind was glass-sharp, glass-bright, just for a moment. He saw the mazes, the rooms with the chairs, the table, the screens, the white coats, the guards, all of it. All of it for the purpose of keeping him in, like the stopper in a bottle. He spoke to the ceiling and the walls, where the doctor lived. ‘You think I’m your prisoner,’ he said. ‘But you’re my prisoner too.’

The doctor didn’t answer.

After a while the girl went quiet and so did his mind.

***

He didn’t have much time. All the bits that hadn’t been cut out from inside his head were drifting about, within reach. If he was quick he’d be able to catch them. He ripped his flesh open and began to write, to put it on the wall where he could see, where he would be able to read it when he no longer remembered.

An address that might have been his own. Names. Making jokes for a boy (Steve?) so he’d drink a bottle full of purplish-red. Rows of little lead letters. A tank. Bottles covered in plaster dust. Washing hanging on a line. Things people had said, maybe, headless and tailless.

He filled the cell with words, top to bottom. Halfway through he wondered if he was going to run out of blood, empty himself on the walls. That would be good, wouldn’t it? But he didn’t. He didn’t run out of blood. He didn’t even run out of words. The only thing he ran out of was wall.

And time.

He blacked out again.

Always.

When he came to, the walls were sickly-white and empty again. The skin on his hand felt damp. He brought it to his face so he could sniff it. The faintest trace of soap still clung to it.

He hadn’t been forced. He didn’t remember it, but he knew he hadn’t been forced. He didn’t have that to cling to. He wasn’t nauseous, either, his head didn’t ache. The fog had ebbed away, just a little bit. He could hook thoughts together and have them go somewhere for once, but it didn’t matter.

Nothing he did mattered. He would wash it away like a tide on sand. Nobody had to make him do it.

He had to wipe it off.

He didn’t know how long it took for him to feel the presence in the room. He didn’t move. Instead, after a while, he looked at the chair by his bed, the man sitting on it.

‘Hi, Bucky,’ Steve said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another Emergency Puppies/Kittens chapter, I’m afraid. :( Though hopefully (she said) I managed to keep the focus on where I wanted to keep it, i.e., on the psychological effects all this has on Bucky, rather than on horrible things happening for the sake of horrible things happening. The bit with Bucky’s father is lifted straight from the comics, specifically _Captain America and Bucky_ #620 (Sep 2011). (You can find the relevant scans [here](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/overlithe/15266763/256675/256675_original.png) and [here](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/overlithe/15266763/257014/257014_original.png).) In this fic’s backstory, as well as in my MCU head-canon in general, Bucky’s understanding, loving, etc father died in an accident during his son’s childhood after telling Bucky he was disappointed over the fact that Bucky got in trouble after promising he wouldn’t do it anymore. Basically the main difference from the comics—in terms of the characters’ interactions and relationships, that is, obviously there are many other differences in details—is that Bucky’s mother is still alive throughout all this and Bucky got into trouble due to not knowing how to stick up for Steve/deal with something else that will come up later in appropriate ways, rather than getting into trouble due to not knowing how to deal with his mother’s death in appropriate ways. The line _you’re my prisoner too_ is taken from a similar (not identical) line in one of Ruth Rendell’s books. I _think_ it was _Make Death Love Me_ , but unfortunately while the line has stuck with me the title of the book hasn’t! The bottle of purplish-red would have been a bottle of raw liver juice, which was used in the 20s as a treatment for pernicious anaemia (one of pre-serum!Steve’s many health problems) until a concentrate was developed in 1928.


	6. Reward

**6\. Reward**

‘I’m sorry. They made me forget.’ He shifted up on the bed. _Not everything._ ‘Steve.’

There were no windows in the room, but the light falling on the other man was the washed-out grey of a winter morning. A New York morning, maybe. Sometimes he remembered the city, real memories, not just knowing that it was big, that it existed, that it was in America. Pigeons scattered by traffic. The corner of a building. A bridge over a muddy river. The flashes would float up, then sink back down into the silt, as deep as it got.

He did not mind that so much. That he had allowed so many of the Steve-memories slip away, _that_ was unforgivable.

‘It’s all right,’ Steve said. He looked, Bucky was almost sure, the same as the last time (one of the last times) Bucky had seen him, but it was hard to believe either of them had ever been that young. Without mirrors, with only the half-remembered films, Bucky didn’t know how much he had changed since… Outside, maybe that was the best word. He knew he was ancient, though, like one of those Egyptian mummies. Open him up and dust and curses would spill out.

Steve spoke again. ‘You didn’t mean to, Bucky. I know they do things to you. They make you do things.’

 _I let them_ , Bucky almost said. The way Steve looked at him stopped him. He had forgotten almost everything, but not that. Not the way Steve looked at you like you really mattered.

‘I hate them,’ Bucky said instead. ‘I hate him.’

The words felt misshapen on his tongue, but they were out now. He should have been shaking with terror: the doctor knew everything, saw everything. He could reach inside Bucky’s head and pull out all the thoughts, the wrong ones, the bad ones, the dirty ones, the ones Bucky didn’t even know about. He could teach him things without Bucky ever noticing. He could punish. He could choose not to, even when Bucky deserved it.

Bucky hated him.

He hadn’t dared think it before. Might as well be a fish, and hate the ocean.

Steve shook his head. ‘This isn’t you. It’s all on them. I know you. You’re smart. You’re brave. You’re good.’ _So why are you still here? Why did you give up?_ Bucky waited for the words, but they never came.

He had forgotten about that look on Steve’s eyes, the cast of his mouth. That Steve didn’t think he was anything special, that he thought everybody was just like him, deep down, and most people just needed a little nudge.

You ended up trying to live up to what he thought you were, even without you realising it. A skinny little punk—Bucky remembered now; how could he _ever_ have forgotten?—who threw spitballs during the Pledge of Allegiance and told bullies twice his size _I’m gonna give you a chance to put things right_ and could lay you out without throwing a punch.

‘You’re better than them. I’d never have made it without you,’ Steve added, and Bucky believed it. He felt tears sting his eyes. He didn’t remember when he’d last cried. He wasn’t sure if he could. ‘You’ll remember what they’ve forgotten.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Steve rose from his chair. Whatever clothes he had been wearing, they were gone, replaced by a suit of stars. ‘Are you home?’ Bucky asked. ‘Can I—’

‘Not yet.’ He reached out for Bucky’s hand, the real one, the one that hadn’t been turned into some metal monstrosity. The weak one.

‘It’s cold,’ Bucky said, and this time he spoke out loud.

He hadn’t been speaking before, not really. It had just been another of his waking-dreams, he knew that, had probably known it from the start. There was no chair, no wintry sunlight, only the harsh glare of the fluorescent lights.

No Steve.

He was clutching his left hand with his right one. He thought—that was all he had now, thoughts; people said (he was almost sure) “I remember it as though it was yesterday”, but if something had been yesterday he’d already have forgotten—that he did things like that now. Maybe the doctor had shown it to him in one of the films, or in the chair where they put pictures in his head. Images of himself running his fingers through his hair, over and over, until clumps of it started coming loose. Or him sitting on the bed or the floor, head on his knees, one hand moving up and down his calf until he rubbed the skin raw. Another of his abnormalities. There was probably a name for it.

_Pathetic._

He heard the metal clang of the door being unlocked and opened. A woman and a man stepped in, rifles (SKS-45s) slung on their backs, handguns holstered at their waists. It was time for his pills. He wondered dully if either of them had been in his room before. Even without the holes in his head it would be hard to tell with the surgical masks.

_The pills. They forgot the pills._

The thought was as startling and vivid as the shot from a starter’s pistol. For one wonderful moment his mind raced instead of oozing.

It was true.

They hadn’t forgotten the pills themselves, of course. They sat, one oblong, one round, in a paper cup in the woman’s hand. She rattled them, as one might do for a baby, and waited for him to open his mouth and stick his tongue out.

They’d forgotten that, by some miracle, he might be too clear-headed to take them.

_Steve._

No, he mustn’t think of Steve. They might catch the memory on Bucky’s face. He made himself look as blank and slack as ever, which was easy to do, because the fog had been blown away only for a moment and was creeping in at the edges, waiting to come back. When the woman gave him the pills he slid them under his tongue. They no longer checked to see if he swallowed them. If this one guard did, he would dry-swallow, open his mouth for her and pray she didn’t notice the shapes under his tongue.

 _If the doctor finds out_. He nearly gave himself away with a twitch of his body. His kidneys felt icy and hot at the same time. If the doctor found out there would be a punishment, and Bucky couldn’t even imagine what it would be. But the woman didn’t read any fiery letters on his face, didn’t see a cloud of guilt hanging over him. She just said something to the man in a language they hadn’t put in his head yet, and the pair exited the room. There was a loud clap of metal as the lock slid back into place.

Bucky remained sitting at the foot of the bed for a long time. The pills—one oblong, one round—weren’t the kind that dissolved straight away, but even so he could taste their bitterness. A little of what was inside must be getting to him, spreading through his blood like ink through water. If he took too long to get rid of them, soon thinking would be even harder than before.

He couldn’t rush it, though. They would notice.

He lay back on the bed, then rolled onto his side, trying to look like he was just resting. There were sensors in the metal arm. Cameras in the ceiling. If he looked at the lights he would see a shoal of eyes. His right hand slid casually to the edge of the mattress and started searching for a weak spot in the fabric. His fingertip brushed a hole.

They would pick up on the thing curdling inside his chest.

Had he made the hole? He couldn’t remember. His mouth had filled up with saliva by the time he finished worrying the hole into the right size. He rolled onto his back again, slid his hand over his mouth like someone covering up a yawn, and spat one of the pills into his palm. The pill was so warm and wet he was sure it was going to melt inside his fist, leave tell-tale streaks on his skin, his clothes, everywhere. It didn’t, of course, and it didn’t slip out of his hand as he, curled up on his side and trying to shield his actions with his body the best he could, worked it into the hole in the mattress.

He did the same with the second pill. His hand was a little shakier this time around, but still he managed it.

The pills were going to slip out of the hole. Plink on the floor where the doctor could hear them.

They made an enormous lump in the mattress. All of them would notice it.

He was going to be found out.

It was a start.

***

The _later_ after that was full of signs.

He didn’t do bad things. Not enough for the doctor to punish him, at any rate. They still put him in the machine when he was blacked out, the one that cut all those holes inside his head, but he was sure they did it less often, more gently. The _tearing_ when he woke up and realised something else had been ripped from him was less bad. They were using smaller scissors, leaving enough scraps of him behind.

He didn’t write on the walls anymore. He was being good. When things worked well, there were rewards. The doctor didn’t put him on the table too often, and Bucky lay quietly, neither helping nor hindering, when the electrodes were placed on him. He didn’t give too many wrong answers, either, or at least the pain afterwards didn’t last too long. Maybe because he could think better.

The pictures they put inside his head still made him vomit most of the time, but he didn’t think that could be helped.

He shot at targets. He assembled and disassembled rifles, blindfolded, until he was no longer made to hurry up. He learned their parts until the knowledge was embedded in his fingertips. He learned to use the metal arm, handled pins and dice and glass beads with his right hand and arm paralysed, was made to run across moving inclines and shaking beams until he’d grown accustomed to the weight and balance.

He was being good.

He ran an obstacle course inside a maze, over and over. He was shot at, half-drowned in electrified mud, dodged darts and blades in the dark, crawled two miles through a hole that was barely big enough for him and which was full of a gas that made his airways swell almost shut.

He learned to make fewer mistakes. Afterwards, the doctor never had to point out too many, and when the syringe and the needle came out, Bucky still felt his mouth go dry and his body freeze, but it was almost always the thing that made him feel better. Almost always.

(There was only one bad time, when he had to jump down a narrow, darkened shaft that must be at least three storeys high. When he looked at it his head swayed and he thought he heard—

_snow_

—a whistle. They had to use an electric prod to make him jump, and then he landed badly and heard his leg snap, and the doctor left him there for a while to think about what he’d just done.)

He liked the training. He liked it because everything became sharper, and because he could hurt himself, just a little, not enough to deserve punishment. Enough for there to be welts, or cuts, or bruises. It was all his idea and it caused a bit of pain, and those two things helped him remember. He didn’t need the wall when he could write on his flesh, when he could feel the sting of a wound, tugging on his mind like an anchor. _Steve. Remember. You come from somewhere. Not here. Someone cared about you. There are things Outside. Things to go back to. Maybe even people._

He hated that he healed so quickly and so cleanly. It made it harder to hold on.

Everything seemed more real, too. He didn’t think the things around him were changing as much as usual, or maybe it was just the fact that the fog was not as thick since he’d stopped taking the pills.

The stash inside the mattress kept getting bigger. He knew he couldn’t count the days by it, so instead he just counted the number of pills. His calendar went from two to four to six to eight. When he reached ten he knew he was going to have to come up with a plan soon. He wake-dreamt that the doctor slit the mattress open and a waterfall of pills poured out. He wake-dreamt that the mattress bulged with its secret cargo and ripped open underneath him. The pills inside had turned into things with legs and mouths full of pincers.

 _Think, Buck._ Think.

Thinking was easier when he told himself his name, over and over, even if he didn’t remember all of it.

He couldn’t just make a run for it. He knew there were eyes watching him all the time, never sleeping. He would be stopped in seconds. He could see things more vividly, too, without the pills: the metal arm pumping jolts of electricity into him, over and over until he could smell smoke and singed skin; holding the same position in the dark room until the pain and exhaustion spilled out into tooth-ringed bursts of light and the feel of hundreds of insects digging around in his flesh; going awake into the chair that dug holes inside his head, its wires burrowing into his eyes and his skull.

He wasn’t sure if those were real memories. They didn’t like hurting him. They punished him when he hurt himself. But if the doctor caught him trying to escape, if he caught Bucky’s thoughts about it, then he would make all those memories real. Worse. Worse things. He would root inside Bucky’s head until he’d dragged up the worst thing and then he would make it happen.

He wondered if the pills made you sleep, but there wasn’t any way for him to slip them to the guards.

(He didn’t dare think about slipping them to the doctor, see him drop to the ground like a felled tree still in his bow tie and white coat. He didn’t dare think. He didn’t.)

Another sign, the most important, came when he was fighting his way through the corridor full of mechanical obstacles that struck at random. The only light was the flash from the guns’ muzzles. He had to guide himself by sound (through the blaring noises), smell (through the smoke), the feel of things lunging towards him. A blade sliced through the air. He ducked under it, felt it double back, and spin-kicked upwards to smash the mechanism. He misstepped only slightly: one of the edges cut halfway through his padded vest and he had to parry with the metal arm. There was a screech of metal on metal and the sound of something breaking.

 _Clunk, clunk, clink._ Even with the sirens filling the corridor, Bucky heard the noises of metal pieces hitting the floor, two large, one small. Before he could think, he dropped down. Shots rang out above him. A bullet almost grazed his head. _Where is it? Where is it?_ He groped around, eyes closed against the smoke, in the spot where he _thought_ he’d heard the softest clink. If he didn’t get up and find a way past the next obstacle he was going to—

His finger brushed a metal edge. He grabbed the blade fragment, less than half the length of his thumb, and slipped it into his boot as he straightened up and broke into a run again. It burned like a scarlet brand between the leather and his ankle. _They’ll see it they’ll see it they’ll see it._

They didn’t. Once the run was over, before the twilight sleep happened again, he reached down, pretended to adjust his boot— _oh god don’t let it have slipped out_ , he thought, even though he could feel the blade still digging painfully into his skin—fished out the piece of metal, and put it under his tongue.

He knew he wouldn’t be awake, but he wouldn’t be fully asleep, either, so he sank his teeth into his tongue, just a little, to keep it and the shard in place. When he came to fully he was sitting in the fixing chair, his metal arm splayed open, and white coats were rummaging around inside with blowtorches as they chattered in Russian about engines. Motors. He wasn’t sure.

The doctor was standing above him. ‘A decent performance,’ he said. ‘Not terrible. But hardly excellent.’

Bucky stared at him. Blood pooled inside his mouth. The chunk of metal felt enormous all of a sudden. He was sure half of it must be poking out through his jaw. The doctor would know everything just from looking at his eyes, but Bucky couldn’t even blink.

‘Make sure you do not damage the arm next time,’ the doctor said, and that was that. He neither punished nor rewarded, he didn’t make Bucky open his mouth and spit out his crime.

When Bucky was in his room again, the sleep turning to tatters, he sneaked the bit of metal out of his mouth and hid it in the mattress like he did with the pills. Being sharp, the little chunk of blade sank into the mattress’s innards almost immediately. He wondered if he was going to have trouble fishing it out.

_Fishing it out for what?_

That was the thing. He still didn’t have a plan. He _was_ going to have one—what else could finding the piece of metal and having the doctor do nothing to him mean?—but it wasn’t here yet.

_Come on. Think._

He stared at the ceiling, at the familiar rectangles of frosted glass encasing the fluorescent lights. What was the point of not taking the pills to keep his mind sharp when it was still so dull? _Cut that out. Just think._

But he didn’t, not really. Whatever thoughts he was having swirled somewhere in some basement while he did nothing but stare at the lights until they were shot through with green splotches. Once in a while a half-formed idea floated up, invariably terrible. Cutting himself: stupid, he knew what happened when he damaged his body, even by accident. Cutting wires in the room: no. Using the blade as a weapon: he was no longer even trying.

_You need to find a way up._

Yeah, he did. He didn’t know where he was, but his body picked up some kind of tiny difference between where he was now and the doctor’s rooms, like an old woman’s knees telling her rain was coming. His room, the training rooms, were in some maze deep underground. The rooms with the chairs and the table and the machine that put pictures in his head and the one that took them out were all far above. He had a few slivers of memory, times when he was supposed to still be in the aftermath of his ice-sleep or deep in a drugged mist but felt the rumble of a lift going up, saw sun streaming through skylights. Maybe none of it was real.

Another sliver of memory: a picture of a man with a bull head, sitting in the middle of a maze. Bones were scattered here and there, drawn with charcoal. Bucky didn’t know who had made the picture or where he’d seen it. He didn’t know if that memory was real, either, but the bull-man and the maze were as real as it got. That much he knew. He was here.

_What if you were sick?_

That was a stupid idea too. He never got sick.

_But if you were sick? What would happen?_

The idea was too bright, too forceful for him. It must be Steve again, the Steve he’d assembled in his head from splinters and shavings of memory. He might not remember much, but he knew Steve was smarter than him; he burned too much like a star for things to be otherwise.

If he was sick, he supposed they would fix him. They would take him up, yes. But they would make him black out as usual.

 _But if you were really, really sick._ Dying _sick._

He thought of words he didn’t remember learning. Pneumonia. Whooping cough. Paralysis. Maybe if he was really, really sick, they wouldn’t knock him out, just rush him to one of the rooms where they could try to fix him.

Maybe, if he was dying sick, they would have to rush him… out (where?) entirely.

 _Makes no difference, pal._ His thoughts sank like a deflating balloon. If he were really, really sick, dying sick, they wouldn’t _need_ to knock him out. He’d be too sick to fight his way out anyway.

Steve insisted again. _But if they just_ thought _you were really that sick._

_Yeah, what if you pretended to be sick?_

That last one was all him. Who else could have such a boneheaded idea? Of course they would check that he was really sick before they took him up. If they caught him pretending…

_It doesn’t have to be all pretend. You could make yourself sick for real, and then pretend it’s much worse than it really is._

Whose idea was that? He didn’t know. It was neither brilliant nor stupid. It was just something that might work.

If he really had a fever, he could pretend to be in pain, act like his appendix had just burst. Roll around in agony, he had lots of experience with that.

He nearly laughed out loud. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that.

_You can’t fake well enough to fool doctors and nurses._

Maybe not. He’d only have to fake for long enough to be taken up, a wall away from the outside.

_Maybe they’ll just make you black out before they come pick you up to be fixed._

(The doctor knew everything, after all.)

Maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe they’d be too scared that knocking him out might kill him. Damage him. Break him.

_Yeah? How are you going to make yourself sick in the first place, genius?_

The blade.

That’s what it was for.

He wasn’t going to use it to cut himself too bad. Just enough to give himself an infection. He didn’t know where he’d learned it, but he knew it was bad to leave wounds open, or dirty. They would—

_gangrene trench foot_

—fester, get infected. Maybe even give you blood poisoning. If he used the blade to make a wound, some place out of sight, and keep it open. Maybe add some spit to it to make things go faster. If only he could find some glass or dirt to stick into it too…

 _What if you_ really _can’t get sick?_

Maybe that was true. He healed so fast. Maybe he would never sneeze, never cough again, never have a fever.

_They are going to make you black out and whatever you do, when you wake up, it’ll be healed._

Yes, that was probably true.

It didn’t matter.

He had a plan, at least.

That was something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to clarify, it’s certainly possible to get sepsis from a smaller wound that the one Bucky plans on giving himself, so even though any plan in this situation is going to be “pushing a boulder up the Everest with your nose”, that part isn’t one of those things that’s impossible even in theory or anything like that.


	7. Stimulus

**7\. Stimulus**

Making himself sick turned out to be the easiest part.

The doctor was always watching, but if Bucky lay on the bed and pretended the pills had made him drowsy, arms nestled in front of his chest, he could work the small blade into the space below his armpit where the metal arm met his flesh, and no one would know. He would slice away, very slow, careful not to scrape bone, not to make any noises or shudders of pain. Once, he struck something—a rib, a nerve, an electric wire—and his vision blacked out as he clenched his body as hard as he could to stop himself from convulsing or screaming.

It took a while. He wasn’t trying to make himself bleed, just to keep a wound open until it would get infected or something would malfunction. Then maybe they would just wheel him out of the maze and into one of their medical rooms without drugging him, without knocking him out, without it being one of those times when he was not drugged or knocked out but was nonetheless _useless_.

The wound was mostly healed every time he came to, but he kept going, slicing through the puffy ridge of flesh as though repetition would eventually keep the edges from knitting back together. Sometimes—he couldn’t really keep track of how many times but some times—he dared to leave the blade in. It was risky, he knew. They could knock him out and see what he’d done, notice the blood, find the chunk of metal embedded in his flesh. It’d be written on his skin along with all his other secrets.

They were going to notice, they always noticed, they always _saw_ , but maybe he would be lucky, maybe, maybe…

Once or twice or many more times they did knock him out with the blade still in, but they didn’t find it. He came to in the chair where they inked the pictures inside his brain, or in the chair where they took them out, or about to run the maze, and focused on the feel of the blade sheathed in his body, tucked under his arm, the tip scraping his ribs. He could practically feel the spray of rust on the metal. Good. Rust was good, almost as good as the pain, which let him know the blade hadn’t slipped out. Rust would make him sicker sooner.

He managed to swipe a vial of something after one of his sessions with the doctor’s voice, and for a moment that gave him a funny feeling in his chest; it took him a little while to recognise it not as hope but as something a little like it. A little.

Because it meant _something_ , didn’t it? That he was lucid more often than not since he’d managed to stop taking the pills, so much that he even remembered his own name a lot of the time, that he’d found that sharp little piece of metal, that they hadn’t discovered the wound or the things stashed in his mattress, that he wasn’t completely out of it after this session, that the tray with the vials with big danger exclamation points was in reach and a machine made a funny noise so that for one split second no one one was looking at either the tray or him, that this was one of those times when they let him keep his clothes on so he could stick the vial behind the waistband of his pants and keep the metal hand curled over it, that they didn’t spot it when they made him half-sleep and wheeled him out, something, _something_ …

It _had_ to be a sign, didn’t it? A sign. That was what he had.

In his room, awake again, he sat on the edge of the bed and pushed the vial into the mattress. It was much bigger than the pills and the blade, so at first it wouldn’t go in. He kept pushing, sure that it was going to break, that they would be able to see the sweat on his forehead. The vial didn’t break, but it did make an enormous bulge in the mattress, and they were going to notice that, of course they would, they would have to be _blind_ , except of course there was no bulge, it was just his _imagination_ , and if he lay down very, very carefully, he wouldn’t break it.

A snap of glass. He shuddered out of a dream. He never slept but there were his wake-dreams, and that was all this was, a dream. When he sat on the edge of the bed, skin clammy, and felt around for the vial, it was intact.

He was hot and shivery at the same time. He tried to feel his forehead with the back of his hand, pretending he was brushing his hair away from his eyes. _They’re watching. They’re watching. They’re watching._

Fever. He didn’t need to touch the wound to know there was pus, he could smell it, but even so he lay back again— _they’re watching they’re watching theyrewatch_ —to cover up the motions of his fingers as he prodded at the spot he’d been cutting. The flesh felt both mushy and hard with trapped fluid. That was a good sign. He wasn’t going to look at it but he could picture it well enough, blackening skin, streaks of yellow and red. When he moved the metal arm, the flesh parts hurt. That was also a good sign.

Today (what day?). Now.

He rolled onto his stomach, very slowly, trying to look like someone stirring while drowsing, and squirmed, inch by inch, to the edge of the bed. It took forever. It took a few minutes. Then he slipped the blade out of the mattress and went to work on his tongue. If the liquid in the vial made him throw up, he wanted there to be as much blood as possible.

His stomach fluttered just a little at the taste of the flesh-spattered blade inside his mouth. He wasn’t sure if it was hunger, which again was good. He wasn’t sure if he could eat, or if he ever had.

Maybe the liquid in the vial would would just kill him. He put the blade back in its hideaway, his mouth full of salt and rust, and carefully sneaked the vial out of its hole in the mattress, then tucked it out of sight inside his cupped hand. The label had columns of Chinese characters, only a few of which he understood— _stop danger_ —and, pasted on top, rows of Cyrillic letters, most of which he knew. He didn’t understand the words themselves, they were chemistry and science he didn’t know anything about.

The exclamation point inside the red triangle, that he understood. That was familiar.

_Maybe it’s acid. Maybe it’ll just melt your mouth._

_Shut up._

_Maybe it’s poison. Kill you slow._

The thought hung like a rain cloud, making him neither happy nor sad. _So what?_ If it killed him, so what?

He twisted the vial’s cap off with his forefinger and thumb, sure that he was going to spill it all and end the plan right there, sure that he was going to be made to black out. Then, under cover of his curled hand, he pressed the vial against his lips and drank.

There wasn’t much to drink. The liquid stung his cut-up tongue and tasted of disinfectant, but it didn’t melt his lips, and once it was down it just left a chemical aftertaste in the roof of his mouth.

He rolled onto his back, head cloudy with fever. Maybe the liquid would do absolutely nothing, wouldn’t that just be his luck?

(Dying would be like winning the big prize draw, it wouldn’t happen and he couldn’t make it happen, but wouldn’t it be wonderful…)

He wasn’t sure how much time oozed by before his heart began to speed up.

It was only an insistent thump against his ribcage at first, before it turned into a furious hammering. An animal was trapped inside, trying to claw its way out. He dripped sweat, struggled to breathe. _Shit. Oh shitohshitohshit._ Oh he was in real trouble now. He jerked out of the bed, his limbs out of his control, and slammed face-down on the floor. It barely hurt; his body was too numb for pain.

He heaved, coughed up the blood in his mouth, then retched again and threw up a flow of red-streaked bile. It sprayed on his arms, his shirt, the floor, splashed back onto his face.

_You wanted there to be blood there it is good job good job._

By the time the door opened he was on his back but couldn’t remember how that’d happened. His limbs jerked once in a while, his heart raced at two hundred miles an hour. He made a small sound, but that was all he managed. His mouth had slacked open, tongue lolling out like a dog’s. Thinking was too hard. He had to force himself to focus by translating the two guards’ words into English.

‘ _We have a situation._ ’

‘ _I’ll watch him._ ’

‘ _Yes, it looks real._ ’ The guard wasn’t talking to his colleague. He must be using some kind of radio device.

Before Bucky could force another thought, another wave of nausea gripped him. Sour fluid burned his mouth and nose. He tried spitting it out but he only managed to suck it further into his airways. One desperate flail rolled him onto his side and he stopped choking, just as his vision had started to blacken. He gulped air in, greedily. His mouth stung with acid and blood.

‘— _forty-one_.’

He had not felt the guard lift his vomit-stained shirt to take his temperature but he felt the fingers on his wrist to measure his heartbeat. A gun barrel’s blind eye hovered above him. The guards chattered again. This time he did not bother to try to understand what they said. His lips were stuck together, his skin cold. Thoughts curdled somewhere under his skin, firing from nowhere to nowhere.

They must have decided he really was ill. After some time he was picked up off the floor and dumped on a stretcher like a sack of potatoes, then wheeled out of the room. Left, left, right. He tried to memorise the path they were following through the maze of corridors, but soon it all blurred into a loop of beige and linoleum. He had to fight his way out, he knew that, but he forced himself to remain still.

It wasn’t hard. His heart had slowed down a little, but it still felt like it a balloon about to burst, and he shivered with fever. The liquid he’d drunk sizzled in his veins.

He was wheeled into a lift, then another corridor. More guards gathered around the stretcher, hurried, on edge. Hidden doors would slide open for them, but the insides of his head were too mushy for him to understand how. The stretcher rolled to a halt. He shuddered, harder than before. He didn’t know if he’d ever been here. The glint of instruments was familiar, as was the smell, disinfectant and rubbing alcohol, the sweet-sharp scent of medicine.

A clear bag, swollen with liquid, was hung on a pole at his side. Someone grabbed his hand and rubbed a cotton ball across the skin, needle at the ready.

One two three four five. Five guards.

He grabbed the pole and hit Number One so hard he sent him sprawling backwards across the room.

His muscles were rusted with fever and weakness and pain but he was still too quick for them. He jumped down, knocking an SMG off Number Two’s hands with a sweeping kick, then swung the stretcher in front of him just as Number Three got his first shot off. He ducked, grabbed a metal tray and threw it at Number Four as hard as he could, then rammed the stretcher against Three and Five.

They went down in a tangle of shattering glass and muffled cries. Number Two lunged at him, but Bucky knocked him down with a blow from the metal arm and ran out of the room. He slammed the door behind him, slid the lock home, and ripped the handle out.

 _Come on. Move. Move._ He stepped away, molasses-slow at first, then picked up his pace as more shots rang out behind him. The trapped guards shouted and something heavy struck the door, once, twice.

He ran. The fever made him rubbery and the smallest motion of the metal arm sent darts of pain into his chest and back. Still he managed to keep going, dodging into alcoves and shadows whenever he heard noises. He was good. He could pick out sounds at a distance now. He could stay hidden even with sweat stinging his eyes and his heart thudding.

More corridors. More doors. He saw something sticky and dark pool on the floor in front of one of them, but when he blinked it was gone. _Not real._ There were signs, but the words were meaningless to him. Beige floors, fluorescent lights. He was lost in another maze. Soon the alarm would sound. Then they would flush him out until he was cornered. Maybe he could die fighting, at least he would have that, but of course that wouldn’t be allowed.

A map, something, there had to be—

A concrete edge caught his sight. He raced towards it. At the end of the corridor there was a set of steps leading to a bulkhead door. The lock was bigger than his closed fist, but he knew he could handle it. He grabbed it, yanked, and an edge of metal ripped open. A shaft of sunlight streamed in.

God, so close, he was so close.

Two punches from the metal arm, two knives of pain into his muscles, and the panel burst open. He tore, ripped. For a second the light blinded him.

A siren started up, low at first, then loud enough to drown everything else, even his heart and his breathing. He was caught, he was caught, he was caught. Except he wasn’t, there was a hole big enough for him to step through and he was up the rest of the concrete steps and into the air outside, running, running, never stopping, sight thick with black spots.

The light hurt him—how long since the sun had been on his skin?—but after a few seconds he could see again, more or less.

Grass. He was running on grass. It took a moment for him to recognise it.

He wanted to roll in it, grab fistfuls of it and smell it, God, just _smell_ it, but he knew he couldn’t stop. He slowed down just a fraction and looked around to get his bearings.

Behind him stood a concrete bunker, the bulkhead door opening into blackness like a wound cut into the grass. Even at this distance he could see a yellow and black three-foil sign with a bunch of words he didn’t know and one he did.

All around him, there was a circle of houses, small summer cottages painted in bright blues and yellows and reds. _What the hell?_ Was this a town? Were they all in on it? He ground to a halt, ready to bolt out of sight, but there was something off about the houses. He ducked and ran to the nearest one in a half-crouch, huddled under a window, and peeked in.

 _What the_ fuck _?_

There were no rooms inside the house, no furniture. The outside had been given a neat coat of baby blue paint, but the inside was just a wooden frame with no inner walls or ceilings. In the middle, four life-size dummies, faces rubbery and eyeless, sat on folding chairs.

He didn’t have time to think about what he was seeing. Voices sounded out behind him, still several yards away but drawing closer. He broke into a run again, dashed in a zig-zag pattern through the fake village. Dummies looked on behind the windows. More voices, the crunch of gravel and tires. They were fanning out to cover a larger area. He raced towards where the houses ended and an expanse of grass began, then slid to a halt as a jeep pulled up across the terrain beyond.

He was fast, but he was not that fast. He ducked between two houses, sure that the metal arm was going to start blaring. Glow red. Knock him out.

It didn’t. He couldn’t control his breathing or his heartbeat as much as he wanted to, but that didn’t give him away either. He heard a guard climb down from the jeep and walk in his direction, another approaching from the other side. Two more were going in the opposite way. They were all taking care to remain on the grass and not step on the gravel, of course, but that made no difference; he could hear them just fine.

He jimmied the nearest window open and slipped inside the cottage. The inside was cool and smelled faintly of dust and glue. The dummies—only three in this house, two big ones and a little one—stared at the front door. Someone had half-dressed them, which just made them creepier. He almost expected them to turn their heads towards him as he climbed up into the rafters.

The guards’ voices wafted up to him.

Two men stepped inside the fake house, pistols drawn, each scanning a different half of the place. He was motionless, sharp despite the fever. _One. Two._

One of the men had enough time to glance up before Bucky jumped them, but that was all he managed. Bucky landed on him, knocking him out, then bolted towards the other one. The guard squeezed the trigger twice, but as the second bullet whizzed past him, Bucky’s real hand was already on the man’s pistol arm, the metal one on his neck.

He was standing, his hands hanging by his sides. The guard lay at his feet, open-eyed, arm twisted up in an unnatural angle.

_What?_

His thoughts were no longer sharp. He looked down at the man (the corpse) on the floor, the visible eye open and blank. Someone could be looking out from it, seeing him, seeing everything. He—he didn’t remember what had just happened. If he’d squeezed, if there had been a crunch. If he’d meant— _Who cares? God’s sake, get moving._

Yes. He stepped back, muscles full of slurry. Yes, he had to go. Had to keep moving. Keep moving. Pain pulled on his leg as he crouched to pick up both Makarov pistols. He looked down. A red stain spread across the fabric of his pants. The first bullet had grazed his thigh. It didn’t matter. One full magazine, another with six unspent bullets. That should be enough.

He ran out, into the grassy terrain, away from the jeep. He heard shouts behind him, spun around, unloaded six shots, then ran again, faster and faster. Blood spurted out. Soon it had soaked his leg completely. _Gotta keep going. Gotta keep going._

Ocean. He had thought it was a river at first, but now that he was getting closer he could see the plain gave way to a rocky shore that swept down into the sea. The water was dotted with boulders, then it spread out into the horizon, unbroken. He slowed down. His feet ached from running barefoot, but his biggest problem right now was the limp, which was getting harder to power through. He turned around in an arc, keeping parallel to the shore, and sped up again. Each step was agony, but he managed to pick up speed.

_Gotta keep going._

Only… he wasn’t going anywhere, was he? The shore began to turn inwards after maybe two miles (was he that fast? he didn’t know) and ahead there was only more sea.

The sign outside the bunker. The word he recognised. Остров. _Island_. He was in an island, surrounded by water on all sides, a sea that stretched on forever. There was no other shore in the distance, nothing breaking the water. There wasn’t even the cry—

_remember him drawing the bridge_

—of a gull.

He had slowed down to a jog, almost, but he couldn’t stop. He forced himself to move around an outcropping of rock that jutted out into the water. A boat. There had to be a boat, for Christ’s sake, how else did all the people in the maze get here?

(The rest of the world didn’t exist.)

A slab of stone gave way under him and sent him spilling across the rocks. The blow was hard enough to make everything black for a split second.

On your feet, soldier.

_Who is the soldier?_

He opened his eyes. He was sitting on a boulder. The sun was low, tinting the ocean orange. He blinked stickily, wet cotton filling his head. He hadn’t blacked out, had he? He’d fallen just now. He could still hear the _oof_ noise he’d made when he’d struck the ground, the sound of one of the pistols skittering across the—

He looked down at his hand. He wasn’t holding a pistol. He was holding a bloodied rock. An image flashed behind his eyes, so vivid it made vomit rise into his mouth: kneeling on another man’s chest, using the rock to strike at his face and head until it was a mess of red and bone fragments. He dropped the rock, scrambled away from it as though it might bite him. Poison him.

A pistol was lying on the ground, a few feet away. _There were two._ He picked it up. It felt light. He pulled out the magazine. Empty.

He wiped sweat off his forehead. His skin was burning. The pistol had been loaded when he’d picked it up, he was sure of it. He rubbed his eyes.

He could smell the salt tang of the ocean, but he wasn’t outside.

He was lying on the floor of his room, head full of the pictures the vial had put in his head.

He was in the chair, things being injected into his eyes.

So real.

No. No no no no. No, this was real. (Wasn’t it?) He couldn’t tell by the pain, there was always pain, but the blood on his leg was real. The bleeding had slowed to a trickle but the fabric was soaked through, cold and sticky and smelling of copper. It was real. It was—

Engine noises, drawing near. He jumped to his feet and thought of running, but he was ringed in by jeeps. He tried squeezing the trigger, but of course there was nothing but dry clicks. He glanced behind him. His heart was racing again. He could jump into the sea.

He could charge them.

He was never getting out of here.

Guards spilled out of the jeeps, rifles pointed at him. He could throw the pistol at them, but they were out of range, even for him.

‘Why don’t you just kill me?’ he yelled. ‘Why don’t you just _fucking kill me_?’

The darts sped towards him almost too fast for even him to see. He managed to snap one out of the air with the metal hand and another went wide but the others struck home in his flesh.

He was unconscious before his body hit the ground and his last wild, lightning thought was that he was going to black out before he got to feel the grass on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Re: Bucky recognising some Chinese characters, it seems logical to me that the Winter Soldier in the MCU, just like in the comics, would be sent off on missions in the PRC and other places where knowing how to read at least some common characters would come in handy, so it makes sense that Bucky’s handlers would include this in his conditioning/training. Bucky’s temperature of 41 C (if any of that is even real, amirite? Hahah. Haha. Ha.) may seem too high for him to be running around, but his basal body temperature increased after I Can’t Believe It’s Not Super-Soldier Serum, so it’s not actually that high a fever. The island in this chapter was based on similar small islands in real life where biological warfare research, or research involving serious biohazards was/is conducted, such as Vozrozhdeniya Island/Rebirth Island, also known as Anthrax Island, Gruinard Island, which was… also known as Anthrax Island, or Plum Island, which, umm… apparently Anthrax Island was the happening nickname for this sort of place. (I work in cancer research. Our facilities don’t have interesting nicknames. I do work in an office with twenty-seven penguins and zero anthrax, though, so I think I still win.) The failed escape attempt was inspired by a similar scene in the _Breaking Bad_ episode _Granite State_ (season 5, episode 15). The line _why don’t you just fucking kill me?_ comes from the same scene, where it is delivered much in the same context, by a character who would no doubt have much to talk about with Bucky…


	8. Learned

**8\. Learned**

Wake up.

Wake up.

_Wake up._

‘It is time to—

He stirred back to consciousness, slowly. The world was a blur.

—wake up, soldier.’

He blinked, then startled. A blanket had been thrown over him. The sensation was so unfamiliar he’d tried to fight the thing off. There was a needle taped to the back of his hand. He made a motion to shake it off.

‘Don’t do that. The medicine is to help you.’

The doctor sat on a chair by his bedside, keeping watch, papers folded on his lap.

Of course. Bucky—that was his name; it felt as alien as a word in a language he’d never learned—should have remembered the doctor knew everything. The doctor saw everything. The doctor was everywhere. The outside shell changed, grew lines, lost hair, but underneath there was the carved statue of an idol, pupil-less eyes always watching, never sleeping.

You did not escape the doctor.

You did not escape the room with the tiles and the fluorescent lamps and the blank white walls. It stretched forever like a field of ice.

_The blade._

A thick rubber sleeve had been placed around his left shoulder, but still the metal hand snaked across the bed before he could stop it. He couldn’t control it well. It reared and flopped.

(Yes, it was better like that. To think it had a mind of its own.)

‘Are you looking for this?’

He looked back at the doctor, who had pulled a small plastic bag out of his pocket: inside there was a ragged-edged sliver of metal, stained with rust and blood.

Bucky didn’t answer. He couldn’t stop a lick of fear somewhere in his chest, but on some level he wasn’t surprised. Of course the doctor had known all along.

It was reassuring, almost. He stilled, numbness spreading through him.

‘Oh, and I have these too.’ The doctor reached into his pocket again and retrieved a clear screw-top flask holding several pills. A few of them were half-chewed. The plastic made them look spotted with mould.

‘When—’ Bucky whispered, then trailed off. His voice was hoarse with disuse.

It didn’t matter. The doctor filled in the rest himself, as though he could read Bucky’s thoughts. That, too, was unsurprising.

‘From the very beginning, soldier,’ the doctor said, then folded the objects in a handkerchief before returning them to his pocket. He brushed a piece of invisible lint off his sleeve. ‘While you are resting in cryostasis or having any accidental injury repaired, we of course clean everything in your room and carry out any replacements as necessary. It is done for your comfort and well-being. Of course, since you suffer from what is termed paranoid delusions, you, ah, think no doubt it’s all part of some sinister plot. Poison under the bed.’ He shook his head. He sounded more disappointed than angry. ‘By the by, these pills you went to such lengths not to take? They were only mild analgesics and muscle relaxants. To help you feel better after coming out of cryostasis. I do not know what you were hoping to accomplish by not taking them. You do have a perverse drive to injure yourself, though.’

Bucky dry-swallowed, said nothing.

‘In any case, once we realised you had stopped taking your medicine,’ the doctor went on, ‘I convinced my colleagues that it was better to wait and see. There was probably some kind of purpose to your actions. I said nothing when I noticed that you were trying to smuggle that little piece of metal into your room. Very clumsily too, I might add. Of course we noticed the injury right away, too. We had to work very hard to prevent it from healing without—ah, precipitating an episode of your persecution mania. I think it is rather impressive.

‘Did you like the vial, incidentally? I started thinking about the correct moment to leave it out as soon as I understood your plan—it did not take me very long, soldier, I am afraid!’ He let out a neat little chortle at that before he turned serious again.

‘It would never have worked, mind you. In the end we had to give you a little infection, or the symptoms of one, at least. I myself was the one who put the vial out to see if you would steal it. I thought, in all honesty, that you wouldn’t. First, I did not take you for a common thief. I guess one does never know, hmm?’ His expression made him look like he was not terribly surprised by this revelation. ‘Second, I thought you would see it was a ruse. How convenient that that vial had been left out for you so you could pretend to be unwell like a little child who does not want to go to school. But you never suspected a thing, it seems. Incidentally, the contents of the vial only raised your heart rate a little, made you a little nauseous, increased your temperature. Nothing that did any damage. Of course, we also carefully arranged everything around your “escape” itself. You were never in any danger, fortunately.’

 _Swell. What a relief that is_. He had to swallow a laugh. Except it wasn’t a laugh, it was a howl. A scream.

The doctor rose from his chair and stood by the bed, looking down at Bucky. ‘One hopes that you have learned your lesson. But I must wonder, though, what was the plan after that? I am very curious, soldier. I would very much like to know. What were you going to do once you were away from the facility? What did you think was going to happen? Were you going to try to walk to the nearest city? How would you even find it in the first place? Which way would you go?’

Bucky couldn’t turn his eyes away from the doctor’s. ‘I—I’d work it out,’ he muttered. The doctor’s expression, which had hovered between blankness and faint amusement, turned icy. He leaned down. Bucky’s body shrank a few inches away.

 _Yes!_ said a tiny voice inside him. _Yes, let him come closer! Put the metal hand around his neck and_ squeeze _, so what if he has things to stop you he can’t be that fast he can’t he fucking can’t_ but the voice was high and thin and fevered, and was quickly drowned out by everything inside him crying _Be good Be good Be good._

‘Oh, you would.’ The doctor spat out the words. They were acid-etched with contempt. ‘Let us say you arrive at this city, what happens then? Hmm? You were too stupid to think that far, were you not? Did you even stop to wonder if you could speak the language? Or who you would talk to even if you could make yourself understood? What would you tell them? Talk about your training, how you are capable of snapping someone’s neck with your bare hands, or stab someone in the heart with a throwing knife?’ His eyes were two steel spearheads, pinning Bucky in place. ‘And then maybe you could tell them you think you are an American? What would happen then, do you think you can figure it out? If you are so smart? They would arrest you. Take you at your word and treat you as a spy, a criminal, a ruthless murderer. And that is if you were lucky, very lucky. If you were not, they would see that you are a lunatic. Take your arm away, shave your head, and lock you up forever in an asylum. Is that what you want? It sounds as though it is what you want. No, tell me. You must tell me. You want to leave so badly, so what is it you think, exactly? That everything is wonderful outside?’

‘No, I—I don’t know!’ Bucky cried out. He hadn’t meant to speak and his stomach knotted with terror, but the words were spilling out now, whether he wanted them to or not, so fast they nearly stuck together in his throat. ‘I don’t know, OK? I don’t know! I don’t know what I was thinking. I know it was a stupid plan. I know I didn’t think it through. You’re right. I’m not smart. I’m not like you. I know I can’t stop you from doing whatever you want to me. All right? I know that. I can’t even keep you out of my goddamn head. And I know that this is the most clear-minded I’ve been in who knows how long and I can barely remember my own name. But I can hold on!’ His voice was strained.

‘That’s all I can do, all right? Whatever you do, whatever you dish out, I can take it, and I can hold on, and _wait_ —’

The doctor frowned, straightened up. ‘Wait? Wait for what?’

Bucky didn’t answer. The words had dried up. All he could do now was lie down in silence and exhaustion. His eyes stung. He wanted be very still and have everything go black (he never slept). He wanted the punishment to start. He wanted it to just be over and done with. He would feel better afterwards. Less scared. Scrubbed clean.

‘What are you waiting for? For him?’ When the doctor had stood up, he’d tucked his papers under one arm. Now he grabbed them and threw them at Bucky’s face. They struck the bridge of Bucky’s nose with a soft _thwap_ before falling to his lap. They weren’t a weapon, or an instrument, just exactly what they looked like: a bunch of papers. They hadn’t hurt him when they hit him. Humiliated him, maybe, but he was far beyond that by now.

He leaned forward, slow as he could make it, as though the doctor might have hidden some biting thing inside the papers, and spread them out. At first he didn’t understand. They were mostly clippings from what he was quite sure were newspapers, American newspapers. Some of the running heads said things like _New York Times_ and _Washington Post_ and he knew those were cities in the United States.

One clipping had a list of numbers, something about stocks. He turned it around. On the bottom half of the paper there were two pictures in bad black-and-white newsprint.

Bucky wanted to think that was why he took several seconds to recognise the blond man.

That wasn’t the real reason, though. The pictures might be of mediocre quality, and the paper itself a little yellowed, but one of the photos had the costume, the stars and stripes. He remembered it now, like a clap of thunder in his head.

It was just that he’d forgotten what Steve looked like. Almost forgotten. Almost completely.

 _10 Years Later_ , the headline said. It wasn’t much of a headline, even. The type was very small. He scanned the lines, eyes moving so fast his brain struggled to keep up. _Discussions regarding the planned memorial continue… after Rogers was killed in action on May 6 1945… a retrospective of his WWII career…_

_After Rogers was killed in action._

_Was killed in action on May 6 1945._

_Killed in action._

His hands shook a little as he flipped through the rest of the papers. There was that date again, over and over. _May 6 1945._ And the word, _killed_. It was so odd-looking when you saw it written out, the k’s arms parted like the jaws of a bear trap.

One newspaper clipping had a date that had been partly cut away, but he could tell it was April 16 1955. (Ten years? Maybe one hundred. Maybe a minute.) There was a playbill for something called _The Last Flight_ , and the date on that was 1946. The cheap paper was yellowed with age.

Bucky looked up. The doctor’s expression had remained placid. ‘It’s a lie,’ Bucky said, feebly. It could be, couldn’t it? Words, whole lines in the clippings had been redacted with black ink. Maybe Steve was alive under that.

It wasn’t a lie. The doctor never lied.

His eyes were cloudy. After he blinked several times, he could see again and there were fat, ungainly splotches on the papers on his lap.

‘Come now, soldier,’ the doctor said. ‘What must you think of me to entertain the idea that I would do such a thing. No, it is all very real, I assure you. Do you really think I would forge so many newspapers and things so convincingly? I am almost flattered.’

Bucky didn’t answer. He looked down at the clipping again, the one with the pictures. One of the splotches had blurred a line in the last paragraph, the edge of a photo. Everything else remained solid, immovable.

_Killed in action._

‘He was dead even before you joined us, do you know?’ the doctor went on. ‘Perhaps I should have told you straight away, that you were never going to see him again. All this time, holding on to that delusion. It can only have caused harm.’ He shook his head. ‘Oh, don’t look so sad, soldier. It is rather embarrassing. Clean yourself up.’

That was an order. Bucky ran the back of his flesh hand over his face, smeared it wet. He couldn’t be crying. He wasn’t sniffling, his nose wasn’t running. He was just leaking, like things had leaked out of his head until there was nothing left. ‘How?’ he managed to squeeze out.

‘How did he die? Does it matter? It is not like it concerns you at all.’ The doctor paused, shrugged, then went on. ‘He went down with a plane. Not a very interesting story. But you…’

He trailed off. Bucky stopped dragging his hand across his face, stopped seeing the pinpricks of black ink on paper. Stopped.

‘You are lucky, soldier,’ the doctor said, softly, gently, even. He picked up the papers and folded them, then placed them in one of his pockets. That was good. Those things should be out of sight. Tucked away. ‘Most people never get to find out who they really are.

‘Not you, though. Think about it. What kept you going, before? What was your purpose? Following orders, yes, doing as you were told. Whatever you were told, no matter what. But who gave the orders? A man in a—a fancy-dress costume? Do you know what he would say to you, this delusion you were holding on to? If this man were still alive and somehow still remembered you and came here and saw you. He would be…’ The doctor paused for a split-second, brow furrowed in thought.

‘Disgusted. Yes, that is the right word. Disgusted. Like any friends and family, if you had them, would be disgusted. He would tell you he isn’t like you, that he would not have given in, not have said yes to all this like you did, he would rather have died. Of course, that is only because he would understand nothing of our work, isn’t it? All those stars and flashes but just another sad and dull little man with a sad and dull little mind.’ His tone brightened a little. ‘I wish you could see your face right now, soldier.’

‘Why?’ Was he supposed to sound defiant? Instead he sounded like something who didn’t want to be hurt any more. Disgusting, yes. He no longer cared.

‘So you could see how right it is. Do you not understand yet? You were holding on to illusions, and now you have finally let go. And what are you when that is gone? When you realise that there is nothing left? When all those fragile little lies of yours just… float away? No one. No one at all.’

 _No one_ , Bucky repeated to himself.

The doctor started to turn away, stopped, faced him again. ‘It is good, you know. What you have just learned. It is perhaps a little painful, but just like in nature, once the old skin has shed, you can become your true self. You were dead, do you know that? That captain of yours let you die without a care, but I brought you back. I understood your value. I am perhaps the first person in your life who did. And when I asked you if you wished to be made into something, something better, you agreed. Perhaps you do not remember it in words, but you remember it where it matters. You even took to your new arm so quickly. Like a child pulling wings off flies.’

 _Did_ he remember it? There was something very faint, lights, nodding a yes. A ghost-memory. An insect trapped in amber.

‘We all have a nature, you know,’ the doctor said. ‘And without all this you would have never discovered yours. And now you will embrace it. You have begun already. You killed that poor guard so efficiently. Don’t worry yourself about it, he was no one. And there is nothing more at peace than something which has accepted its purpose. The mind…’ He nodded to himself, then looked at Bucky (was that really his name was that another lie). ‘… The fist. We all have our parts to play. You have been so tiresome sometimes, you have required so much correction. But often the hardest victories feel the best.’ He sounded pleased. ‘You will accept it now, I am sure. Understand that it has always been inevitable. You are what you are, soldier, and what you were always meant to be. By blood, by temperament, by inclination. What the ancients called fate. There is no escaping it.’

There was no escape from this. There had never been. If he had jumped off the shore, he’d have tumbled into a hole cut into nothing and woken up in his room.

The doctor took another few steps towards the door before he halted and looked back over his shoulder. ‘I am responsible, you know. For your so-called friend dying. I helped design that plane.’ He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. ‘Of course, that is not my main expertise. I am a biochemist, a geneticist. No, don’t trouble yourself with that, those are scientific fields, you wouldn’t understand. But I have always had a keen interest in robotics and engineering. I told Schmidt not to put in any parachutes or any of those, what do you call them, ejecting seats. Why would he need them for victory? Of course, I was hoping I might be lucky and it might get me rid of him! Odious man,’ he added, with a small shudder of repulsion. ‘But instead, your captain went on the plane and then went down with it. I supposed that if I had done things differently, in a way I would have saved him. But I didn’t. I chose not to. I would still choose not to. For your sake, above everything else. I want you to know that.’

He turned away again. Bucky said nothing, made no motion to stop him. He could always put his metal hand around his own neck, hope he would be able to control it enough and be fast and strong enough to crush the windpipe and the vertebrae before he saved his own worthless hide by passing out. But what would be the point?

‘Thank you,’ he said instead, his voice hoarse. ‘Thank you for… showing me. For telling me.’

He meant it.

The doctor stopped but didn’t turn around. ‘You are very welcome, soldier,’ he said.

The doctor meant it too.

‘Do you want to forget?’ the doctor added, after a short while. Still he didn’t turn around.

He was silent for a moment. In a way he didn’t believe it. He couldn’t be that lucky, surely. To be allowed to forget. ‘Yes,’ he whispered.

‘It will be as you wish. Just rest for now. Let the medicine have its effect. And then, afterwards, when everything is gone… the rest will be just a formality. I hope you realise how fortunate you are, soldier.’

The lock on the door slid shut with its usual metal clang. He no longer minded it. It meant everything was in its right place.

He stayed on the bed, motionless, glancing once in a while at the plastic tubbing and the medicine dripping inside it. Maybe soon there would be the mazes, the guns, the targets. He wouldn’t mind that. Things were quieter, inside. The fog became more bearable. Maybe a bullet would hit him, or he would break his skull. He couldn’t die, but maybe it would happen.

First the chair, though, to bleed his memories away.

He supposed he should hate himself, but he was too tired even for that. More tired than any person could be, he was sure. The doctor had been kind enough to leave the blanket behind, but he couldn’t cover himself with it and close his eyes. He never slept. He liked—no, he couldn’t feel anything. He _didn’t dislike_ the idea of burrowing, going deep inside the flesh of a creature that had been dead long enough to be cold. He didn’t dislike the idea of being left alone there.

(He could have made himself die a thousand times by now if he’d really wanted to. If he’d really put an effort into it. He could have curled up in a corner, refused to move, refused everything. Then they would have put a bullet in his head. Write him off. Useless. But he hadn’t. He had gone along with it, given up, given in. Maybe he hadn’t exactly volunteered, but he hadn’t exactly been forced, either. You did not have quiet conversations with your enemies. A lot of people would not let have this happen to them. They just had to not really want it, even in the deep-down places only the doctor and his machines could see.)

(He wanted them—he wanted the doctor to tell him he was not useless. That he had done well today. Didn’t he? Maybe. He must.)

He didn’t care how much time passed. He lay on the bed, staring at the lights, blinking, he supposed, once in a while. He knew he should look away, that soon (when?) his eyes might burn, but it didn’t matter. They would be fixed. Everything could be fixed.

It was good that he no longer felt hungry or thirsty, didn’t even remember what that felt like. He didn’t eat, didn’t drink, didn’t sleep. When he finished peeling his skin off his whole body would be metal, diamond-hard and unbreakable and beautiful.

The doctor had been wrong, it wasn’t a little painful. It wasn’t painful at all. He felt nothing. Just numbness. Ice.

_You were dead._

It was better that way.

There was an itch on his right arm. He looked at it and saw an insect crawling about, brown and sluggish. It was fat with something, venom, maybe.

It must have crawled out of his skin.

 _You will like it down here_ , the girl in the walls said.

Good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky’s “all I can do is wait” speech comes once again from _Breaking Bad_ , from a similar speech by Skyler White (speaking of characters Bucky would have much to discuss with…) in _Fifty-One_ (season 5, episode 4). And, again, some of Zola’s lines are paraphrased from similar lines in the _Cold Case_ episode _The Road_ (season 5, episode 15) with a few lines also from _Breaking Bad_ , specifically from The Best TV Episode Ever, _Ozymandias_ (season 5, episode 14). Also, um, on another note, I feel I should just… provide an infinite supply of Emergency Puppies/Kittens to go along with this fic, I think… :(


	9. Compliance

**Compliance**

He reached out for the doctor’s hand when he was in the chair, the good one, the one that took the bad things away, just as the doctor was about to give him the injections. The doctor pulled his hand away before he—

_bucky_

_james buchanan barnes_

_please_

_please_

—could touch him. He understood. You never touched the doctor.

‘What is it, soldier?’ The doctor’s voice was kind.

‘Those injections… they make me sleep.’

‘That is correct. No need to worry. You won’t feel a thing.’

He looked up, at the helmet that he knew was going to be lowered onto his head. It looked like the jaws of some strange animal.

‘I—I want to know what happens,’ he said. ‘In the chair. I want to be awake.’

‘Are you sure?’ the doctor said.

He closed his eyes. That seemed to be enough of a yes.

(He’d been awake in the chair before. Maybe. He didn’t know. The doctor was fixing him, but he was still Crazy and Bad and Wrong. He imagined things. He made things up.)

‘Very well.’

There was some commotion at that, but not much. Restraints tightened around his limbs, his torso. The leads were placed on his head. They felt sticky against his skin, but not unpleasant.

He was sure he recognised the guard standing behind two of the white coats, and almost sure the guard was supposed to be dead.

That was all right. He did not mind the dead.

He sensed the doctor draw closer to him. It felt… good. Reassuring.

He deserved everything that happened to him.

‘You may experience some… convulsions,’ the doctor said. ‘You will need to put this in your mouth so you don’t injure yourself by accident. You will like it, it is very soft.’

He opened his eyes, then his mouth. The doctor—he had put on a latex glove—carefully slid in a rubber bit. He took it without fuss or complaint.

The doctor was right: it too felt good. He thought he could feel teeth marks in the bit, which meant everything was in the right place. Held tight. Squared away.

He closed his eyes, only a little anxious, as the machine descended and locked around his head. Switches were flipped. His body tensed on pure instinct as the hum of electricity started up, but the restraints held him tightly. They were not very necessary. He wasn’t going anywhere.

He thought the sound of his own screams was going to be in his head forever, but then he got to forget.

***

They had him use live ammo on the targets. They had always had him use live ammo on the targets.

He liked the sound the bullets made when they hit home.

***

They had brought him to a room. He wasn’t sure what the guard wanted from him, what he was supposed to do. The room was covered in writing, brown with age. In the middle of the room there was a bucket of water, rags, soap, laid out like instruments before a surgery.

Something stirred inside him, very faint. He pushed it down.

He just wanted to know what to do.

The doctor’s voice poured out from a wall. ‘Clean it.’

He got to work, his body now quiet. The doctor wanted to be pleased, and that, that he could handle. That, he knew how to do.

He—

_used to clean_

—ran a damp soapy rag over some of the letters, and after a while the brown began to run and lightened to deep red. The writing had been done with blood. It should be too old to smell, but he was special, he was different (rare breed, rare animal) and so he could pick up a trace scent of salt and iron.

The words were all over the walls, straight, crooked, big, small. Whoever had written them had been much crazier than he was: everything was shaky, loopy, jumbled together.

 _Sister. Street. City street. Commandos. Italy. Lady upstairs Mrs B. Star stars. Strong. Stork._ The words didn’t make any sense.

He cleaned away a bunch of letters that just said _Steve_ , over and over. It took him some time, but the stains went from words to rivulets of brown, then red, then pink, then just soapy water. The wall was wet but clean.

_Who the hell is Steve?_

Another spot said I AM ALIVE I AM ALIVE I AM ALIVE. The letters, all scratchy capitals, grew thinner and crooked, like spider legs.

He kept going. He had to wipe it all off.

***

_this isn’t you, god, this is the first time you’ve been able to think in how long, who are you, I’ve got to get out of here remember please remember no stop don’t please don’t just shut up shut up shut up shut_

***

They had him fight people. Live people, the kind that bled and whose bones broke.

He was supposed to learn from them: close-quarters combat, steps, moves, reading an opponent’s body and stance, dodging blows, taking them, stealth attack, full-frontal attack, hand-to-hand, improvised weapons.

He couldn’t tell time but he was sure it didn’t take long for him to have nothing more to learn. For him to take only moments to take them down, any of them.

He liked that.

Sometimes, when they were beaten, they would throw him a look that was hard and full of sharp edges.

He liked that too.

(He wasn’t supposed to like or dislike things.)

The doctor told him not to kill them.

***

He didn’t think he went into the bad chair, the one that put things in his head, very often.

He couldn’t know, but he didn’t think it was very often.

The pictures were already in his head. Clouds of fire. Bodies swollen with flies. Ropes tightening around the necks of hooded heads.

Once he tried to claw the pictures out of his head and the doctor had to punish him.

As soon as he could use his flesh hand again, he wanted to tell the doctor that he was fixed. He understood now. He was strong. People were weak and they bled and their bones broke.

Not like him.

***

He remembered the doctor, all his faces. He remembered the guns and the knives and the moves. He remembered running the maze.

He remembered being Bad, and his Wrongness, his Sickness, and having all that cut away from him.

He wanted to be good.

He wanted to put a bullet in the fabric head of a practice target, slice through its rubber guts. He wanted to see it kicked down, sawdust spilling, and know that the thing on the ground wasn’t him.

He was very good at shooting things, cutting things, fighting things. That was all he knew how to do, all he was able to do. Put something in his hands and sooner or later its guts would spill out. The doctor said he shouldn’t be ashamed of it. He should be proud. There was nothing like doing what you had been bred to do. What you were naturally good at.

All things were happiest when put to their right use.

He couldn’t remember if he’d ever been happy. He was sure he wasn’t supposed to be.

There had been a Before. He was almost certain there had been a Before. It was drab, the colour of fog, a big black hole with only dust at the bottom.

He didn’t like thinking about the Before.

He didn’t like thinking at all, not very much. Everything rattled inside his head. All loose pieces that didn’t fit. Grab hold of one and it was like sticking a hand in a hornets’ nest.

The doctor helped him not think.

He wanted—

He didn’t want. That was Bad.

He wanted to do what the doctor told him to do.

The doctor made him sleep in a place where he didn’t have to know he was in the dark.

He didn’t like the dark but he didn’t mind that kind.

It was friendly.

***

The wall whispered to him. He went to it, placed his hand on the plaster. The good hand, the cold hand. Veins of black ice spread out across the wall until the room looked like a forest of thorns.

You could come across all kinds of things in the woods. And sometimes you escaped, and ran and ran and ran until you were about to drop to the ground. But in the dark, it was easy to lose your way, and sometimes you ended up just running in a great big circle, back to the needles and the fangs.

That was good. He could stop running, let them into his flesh, under the skin.

He was finally in the place where he belonged, where he’d been headed to all along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The strong/stork thing is Bucky very vaguely remembering Howard Stark (“stark” means “strong” in German). I AM ALIVE written over and over on a wall is once again a reference to the _Cold Case_ episode _The Road_ —it’s what one of John Smith’s victims wrote on her cell’s walls during her captivity. The dark being described as friendly comes from the Jacques Tourneur film _Cat People_ (1942). The bits in the last section about escaping a monster in the woods, running in a circle, and feeling relieved at ending up in the place where you’d been headed to all along come from the Joe Hill short story _Best New Horror_.
> 
> Also, tl;dr (and probably boring and self-involved tbh ;)) meta, feel free to skip: I feel like I should mention that I am hopefully getting across here the fact that Bucky being made to kill people as the Winter Soldier is not a consequence of the abuse he experiences. Having his sense of self and his agency obliterated so he can go and do things he’d abhor at the whims of people who are his sworn enemies is _itself part of the abuse_. This is not to say he doesn’t have a responsibility, once he regains his grip on himself, to help others and choose to be a force for good instead of being used to do harm, because he absolutely does (which is of course exactly what he does in the comics—well, the ones that are actually halfway decent, at least ;)—and hopefully in the movies too, assuming they don’t screw it up). But I just felt the need to point out that the whole “character does bad things out of their own volition, oh well, give them an abusive backstory, that explains it all” trope doesn’t just imply that abuse victims/survivors are basically irrevocably broken vampires, thanks a lot but also… this is actually a favourite tactic of abusers. Abusers are fantastically duplicitous and they often strategically deploy sob stories and redemption narratives to keep their targets under their control/justify their behaviour. In contrast, Bucky doesn’t have access to such a narrative, obviously, since he’s an actual abuse victim. (Plus, there’s plenty of complexity that can be explored in abuse stories! This was actually one my goals when writing this fic! But the whole Freudian Excuse trope… is not it :(( …)


	10. Later

**Later**

He sat on the floor of his room, tucked into a corner. He was not allowed to like or dislike most things—better not to think like that at all—but he liked being in the room. It was all right to think that. It wasn’t Bad.

The door opened a fraction to reveal the doctor. He tensed a little, waiting for the doctor’s voice, waiting to be needed, but the doctor said nothing to him. A man in uniform stood next to the doctor.

‘Is it ready?’ the uniformed man asked, in English.

‘He is, General.’

The general made a disapproving noise. The weak light made his insignia look like a shoal of eyes. ‘It doesn’t look all that impressive, does it?’

‘Only because you have not seen him in action yet, I assure you.’

‘ _We’ll see_ ,’ the general said. He (the soldier) knew what he was saying, and knew that he was saying it in Russian. The general frowned, turned to the doctor again. ‘Why is it making that… sound?’

‘That? Oh, he is just—humming. Nothing to worry about, General. We will fix him.’

The doctor took a small radio device from his pocket. ‘Wipe him again.’


	11. Later

**Later**

He sat on the bed in his room. He was not allowed to like or dislike most things—better not to think like that at all—but he liked being in the room. It was all right to think that. It wasn’t Bad.

The door opened and the doctor stood outside. He tensed a little, waiting for the doctor’s voice, waiting to be needed.

‘You can leave if you want,’ the doctor said. ‘No one is going to stop you.’

The doctor walked away.

He turned his back to the door and remained still. Maybe he had done something that needed to be punished. He didn’t remember, but he remembered so little.

(Why would he leave?)


	12. Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter’s illustration is by **dark_roast** , click on the picture to go to her art post.

**Now**

The soldier is in a rainforest. The first and last thing he remembers is the doctor’s voice, filling him up, giving him his orders. His only weapons are his arm and his body, but that’s enough. He can edge away in time from the hidden spikes as he wades through mud, move fast enough and hear and sense well enough to navigate a booby-trapped path. At some point the only way towards the target is through a tunnel sealed by barbed wire and full of murky water. He uses the metal hand to rip a hole open and takes a breath deep enough to fill his lungs.

The night outside is warm, but the water is cold, cold, as cold as it gets.

One minute.

He cannot see, but he isn’t afraid. He is never afraid.

He knows what he is for.

Two

_(stay here just stay here end it now)_

minutes.

He emerges to air, rushing tangy and humid into his lungs, a moon like a jaundiced eye, leaves bigger than his head. Then gunfire, pinning him in place. He melts into the shadows. The only sounds are the whistles and cracks of the bullets, the splashes as they hit the water. Even the birds and the insects are quiet. Soon he pinpoints the spot, high up in the canopy, where the gunman must be. Not a sniper. A sniper wouldn’t be this wasteful.

He moves in a wide semi-circle until he is behind the shooter’s nest and begins to climb.

There are things in the trees, he knows, with scales and fangs and claws, but they can’t do anything to him. Sting him or bite him and you’d fall dead from venom.

He lands on the platform high up in the tree branches, the good arm at the ready, but instead of a

_(person)_

target there is only an StG, rigged to fire on a timer. Spent cartridges spill, still hot, onto the platform. He breaks the mechanism, stops the rifle and unhooks it from its moorings, then takes it with him along with the last cartridge belt. His weak hand is stained with mud, and that makes the gun feel cold and slippery, even though it fits perfectly into the metal hand’s hold. He can sense steel spreading from his arm to his bones, snaking through his veins, curling around the glistening darkness of organs.

The mission objective is inside a compound with sentries and guards, wooden spikes jutting towards the sky and the outside. There is a fire, the scent of something sweet, burning. He has been told not to be seen, so instead of cutting a path straight to the target, he sneaks in. He has to be a ghost instead of a weapon. He can be a ghost. He can just disappear.

He waits for a patrol to move past, then crawls across a wooden beam ceiling, drops down, picks a lock.

Inside it’s dark and it smells of burnt oil. He smells of nothing but mud and his breath is soundless. He doesn’t even have a shadow.

The target is sitting on a chair, back turned towards him.

Very bad.

He unslings the rifle, points the barrel at the target’s head. When he squeezes the trigger, there will be only one shot.

Neither of them moves. He cannot hear the target breathe.

When this is done everything will

_(stop)_

be fixed. Put right.

The doctor whispers under his skin. The soldier can feel all the words, buried in his flesh like rivets. It is good. He belongs somewhere, to someone.

_Listen to my voice. There is nothing else. It is necessary that you do this. The future depends on it._

The shot rings out. He is sure everyone in the compound has heard it.

The target’s head rolls to the floor with a thump, spilling sawdust as it falls.

He draws nearer. He has to make sure it is finished. He uses the edges of the plates on the metal arm to tear through the target’s torso, where the heart should be. He slices through fabric, then rubber. The metal hand is covered in something sticky. In the dark, it’s the colour of tar.

‘You have completed your assignment,’ the doctor says. ‘You have done well.’

Now he gets to sleep.

***

He awakes.

The dark goes from ice to warm and liquid.

He thinks that maybe the dark is better when it’s cold.

There is a heartbeat, very steady. He knows what’s coming next even though he remembers nothing of what came before. When the voice starts— _his_ voice, the doctor’s voice—it is soothing. Comforting.

_Listen to my voice. There is nothing else. Listen to my voice._

_Yes._

The light appears, brightens from deep grey to white. Soon they are done with the leads on his skin and the pictures flashing behind his eyes. His nose and throat are clogged with the ice-smell, but all he cares about is that they have just ripped the voice away from him like a limb, or a piece of dead skin.

He does not have time to feel the lack. The doctor himself is there, standing in front of him.

‘Move your arm, soldier,’ the doctor orders.

He does not need to be told which arm the doctor is talking about. He raises the good arm, the strong arm, turns it back and forth, closes and opens the hand, wriggles the fingers. The metal is smooth and, other than the elbow joint, seamless. Under the waking room’s lights, still slick with ice-fluid, it glistens like a diamond. ‘Full control, yes, that is very good.’ The doctor sounds happy.

He wants to make the doctor happy. It is not good when the doctor is unhappy.

The doctor tells him what he is meant to do. ‘Are you ready to receive your mission briefing?’

They put pictures in his head, give him his weapons. The pictures are ugly, because what he has to do is ugly, but he will do it because the doctor asked him to. Because this is the war, and he is the soldier, and he was made to do what has to be done. The doctor is always watching, even when his eyes are not in the room, and he can see everything inside the soldier’s head, even the littlest thoughts that scurry about like ants. He knows when the soldier is Wrong, even when the soldier doesn’t, and he has machines and other things he can use to fix him, correct him, get him sorted out.

The soldier has

_(bad)_

_(very Bad)_

_(don’t even think)_

not power too, no. Not power. But he is—maybe—necessary. There are things only he is fit to do. That is why the doctor asks him. The soldier cannot live without the doctor, but the doctor needs him too, just a little.

The idea is… pleasing, he thinks. His eyes dart from the white coats to the doctor and back again. The thought is written on the screens, pouring into the wires attached to his head. The doctor can see it, but does not punish him for it, so it must not be Bad.

The soldier folds the thought up, as tight as it can get, and tucks it away as snug as a bullet inside a gun.

***

The mission is in a harbour city. The air is warm—too warm—and full of sea moisture, but his arm works and his weapons work, and so he cannot mind it. The ocean

_(island)_

is crawling with ships, big and small, and the target is in a building that rises into the darkening sky like a needle. He has cased the area since the drop, knows there are bodyguards posted outside the room but not inside. Inside is safe because it is fifteen storeys high, but that is not true. Nowhere is safe from the soldier.

The city is thick with people, and street traffic, and noise, so he keeps to the alleyways and the roofs, under cover of shadows and the trees lining the avenues. He knows he can’t be seen. He isn’t real.

When he gets close to the hotel, he moves from the rooftops to the underground. He has the building’s schematics in his head, a fleshless white skeleton in a blue field. He knows where the basements are, the soft entrances, the elevator shafts. He lifts the electrical panel in one of the service elevators and disables it. It is only temporary, he knows—once people find the fault they will eventually take a look at the wiring, repair it. But that’s what he needs it to be, temporary; just a mishap that won’t raise any suspicions.

That’s what he is, too. Temporary. When it’s all over he will never have been here.

He climbs up the shaft, to the very top. When he’s almost there, he hears the elevator start up again, fourteen floors below. He isn’t worried. He’s fast.

He doesn’t look down. He never looks down.

When he climbs out the elevator is still a whole floor below him. He makes his way to the roof, eyes focused on the water tanks and the

_(maze)_

tangle of vents and not on the city spread out below, then climbs down the outside, inch by inch, unseen. The wind howls and tosses his hair about and the ground is very far below him, but he knows he won’t fall. He won’t die. He can’t.

He reaches the target’s window. The curtains are drawn and he crouches on the ledge, balanced on one foot.

The hotel’s facade is white with wealth, but from this high up he can see the shanties huddling on lower rooftops, the rain barrels and cracked concrete and walls of rust-stained corrugated metal. It makes him dizzy. Headlights and strings of street lamps swirl far below. He feels something strange in his midsection, and wants it to go away.

He focuses on the window again, where he has no reflection. He’s listening for noises from inside the room, but still he notices the thickness of the silk curtains, the string of pearls abandoned on a dresser.

The soldier knows this is what he was made to do. He wasn’t born like people are and didn’t live like people do. Instead, like the doctor explained—patiently, because the soldier isn’t smart enough to understand—he serves a Purpose. He can’t grasp it fully, not even if it were laid out in front of him like a disassembled rifle, but when he sees these things, pearls, shanties, he understand that perhaps what he does will help fix that.

Maybe it can be Good even if he’s Bad.

The window is easy to force open. He slips in, his footsteps soundless. This is a bedroom, empty. He walks to the adjoining room, where instead of the target there is the woman mentioned in the briefing, busy at a writing table, leaning over a spread of paper sheets. She doesn’t

_(don’t hurt her)_

_(don’t)_

feel him approach until he’s right behind her. She turns around. Her eyes widen. Instinctively, she grabs a letter opener and slashes at him full force, but it’s too late, it has always been too late. Her yell for help never makes it out of her throat. The soldier clamps his hand over her mouth, yanks her up, and sinks one of his knives into her kidney, all the way to the hilt.

Her hand spasms open. The letter opener lands on the heavy carpet. It’s the first sound since he’s stepped into the room.

She is not the target.

A small red stain spreads on the back of her silk robe.

Her eyes are so wide.

_(stopstopstop)_

He releases her face. Her mouth opens into an O of surprise. The second sound is a gasp as he pulls out the knife. Her brows furrow, as though she can’t quite believe what is happening to her. Fluid gushes down from her wound to the floor. She is warm and solid in his arms and even though the room now smells of blood and urine the pale light trickling in makes everything clean.

Like a blanket of snow.

_(stop)_

He was told not to be seen. To get rid of her if she was in the way. So this must be done now. Things will happen otherwise, terrible things. But the doctor didn’t tell him not to be quick, so he sinks the knife again, this time in her chest, up and under the ribcage, into her heart.

She doesn’t fight it, not anymore. She must understand, then, that this is to put things right. That he has to cut out the Wrongness like the doctor cut it out of him. Her eyes turn glassy as red spurts down the front of her robe, rains down in a flood. Heart blood is red, but in this light it’s almost purple. She looks past the soldier, grows slack in his arms. Her mouth opens, soundless, her slipper slides off her foot and plops onto the blood-soaked carpet. He can see a thread of saliva on her lips.

He lays her down on the floor. Her body jerks once, twice, then stills. Her eyes are still open, already drying. The pool of blood spreads under her like wings.

Dying is hard, maybe. It isn’t hard to be dead.

The soldier steps back. He was careful not to step on the blood, but it has spattered on him nonetheless. It cools on his skin. The smell of it fills his nose. He swallows, once, twice, and doesn’t understand why.

He reaches down to close her eyes with his weak hand.

The target is in the adjoining bathroom. The soldier can hear humming, the occasional splash of water.

He steps up to the bathroom, listens for a moment until he knows what will be waiting for him on the other side. The door is unlocked. When he goes in, the target is still in the tub, the air rainforest-steamy. The target’s mouth opens, but before anything can come out, before he can move at all, the soldier is already upon him.

The soldier is always so fast.

He pulls the target underwater and holds him there. The target is strong with terror, splashing water everywhere, hitting the sides of the tub, but the soldier is stronger. His metal hand is fastened around the target’s throat, cutting off air and blood, his flesh arm pins the target’s legs against the rim of the tub.

A glass.

Stairs.

Pick on someone y—

Water rushes into the target’s lungs. His struggle grows weaker and more desperate, and through the strong hand the soldier can feel the weight of him, the strain of muscle and sinew, the noises muffled by water. The water turns a faint pink. The target’s tongue lolls from his open mouth, his eyes bulge, his skin turns ashen. Soon there’s a squeak of skin on wet tile, a few final convulsions. The body turns limp. Soap suds float above the face, so the only visible thing is the tongue, looking like a purplish slug, and a halo of dark hair.

The soldier releases him, leans back.

There is water everywhere, even on the soldier’s face, dripping down. The target’s (the corpse’s) foot sticks out of the tub, the heel reddened. There won’t be a bruise.

The soldier slides the body fully underwater, turns it on its side. He has to tuck the body’s knees against its chest so it will fit.

The soldier gets to his feet again. Now he must

_(wipe it)_

_(don’t please)_

disappear.

He looks at the body again. Under the electric light, blanketed by water, it almost looks like it’s asleep.

More things whenever he blinks: an alleyway, a rifle, cold. He does not want the pictures, even if he does not mind rifles, or cold. They bring back that tightening fist in his stomach, like all his gears are stiffening with rust. He can feel them about to spill out of his mouth.

He turns his back on the body, rubs the cold skin on his face. The water is dirty, the tiles slippery. He can smell the start of unpleasantness in the air; soon there will be the sticky sweetness of rot, the stink of fluid oozing from the body’s nose and mouth.

The doctor will take care of the soldier. The doctor will take the pictures away. Fix him, put everything right, like the soldier has put things right tonight. Everything right. He bites his tongue, manages to hold his insides in. Everything will be right.

He does not remember, but he has done this many

_(no)_

times. It is what he is for, like one of his knives.

Like a trap.

He steps back into the room, where the other body is and where the air smells of ammonia and cooling blood.

Outside, fireworks have started up. They sound like artillery fire and tinge the body, whose flesh has begun to turn livid, blue, green, red.

The newspaper lying on a table says 1964.

The doctor tells him he has done well, even though he swatted away one of the white coats when they were putting him on the chair, even though he cannot tell the doctor why.

Now he gets to sleep.

Now he gets to forget.

[ ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2515286)


	13. Now

**Now**

He awakes.

A land of snow and a weak sun, low in the horizon. Icicles hang from tree branches. He can sense wolves.

There is a cabin.

He can kill from a distance, but he goes in afterwards, to make sure the shot hit home.

***

He forgets.

He sleeps.

***

He awakes.

A hot city, full of water. Fire rains down from the skies.

The target runs but no one is as fast as the soldier.

***

He forgets.

He sleeps.

***

He awakes.

The road signs are in English. Somehow that makes it easier. He likes that, even though he knows he can’t like things.

It doesn’t take long to run the car off the road.

The target tries to crawl away. He breaks her neck.

He puts the bodies inside the wreck and lights a match.

***

He forgets.

He sleeps.


	14. Now

**Now**

He awakes.

The doctor’s voice falls silent, and after the soldier blinks the ice sludge away, he looks around the waking room for the doctor.

The doctor isn’t there.

The soldier remains very still, says nothing, looks straight ahead as the white coats sink the needle into the back of his weak hand, stick leads to his forehead, draw blood from his weak arm. He doesn’t remember things well—he doesn’t have to—but he knows the doctor is always there. The last time (maybe) the doctor was hollow-cheeked and sat on a chair the whole time, coughing

_(die why don’t you just die can’t die be quiet be quiet be)_

once in a while. This troubled the soldier, but only a little, like a jammed weapon. The doctor was always there, after all.

The doctor isn’t there.

There are guards in the waking room. There are always guards in the waking room, but the soldier isn’t sure how many. The barrels of their guns stare at him.

The doctor isn’t there.

He kicks at one of the white coats.

After that there are more needles.

The doctor isn’t there. Not even to punish him.

The doctor’s voice is there, poured into his ears. Pictures are lanced into the soldier’s eyes and settle somewhere inside his skull, in one of the places he can’t take apart. It’s all right. He has the voice, telling him things, who is the target, what he is to do, what he is for.

The soldier watches close to a road lined with large houses. Sunlight glints off window panes and chrome fixtures but there are always shadows, everywhere, at all times. From under his cover he can see the trickle of traffic. Two young girls (low threats) wearing pants that flare around their calves walk down the street with a German Shepherd (higher threat) on a leash. A Plymouth rolls down the tarmac, windows rolled down, music pouring out: a man telling trouble not to get in his way (car: threat, but pulling away).

He makes his way towards the house where the target is, silent and fast. There are trees around the house, and no good place to take a shot, but even with the leaves in the way, the soldier can see the target folding a newspaper in the kitchen, then putting a mug away before making his way to the bedroom upstairs. They do it like that, most of them: live next to wide windows and behind flimsy gates, their backs turned to doors. Even the car parked in the driveway is the kind whose fuel tank can be pushed forward and punctured. There isn’t a single bodyguard, either.

Bodyguards can’t stop the soldier.

His orders are to get rid of the body afterwards, so he slinks into the house, creeps upstairs. The target doesn’t have time to turn around before the soldier fires two shots into him, one into his abdomen, the other into his head. The bullets are small caliber. If the pops carried outside the house, they were no louder than the sound of a car backfiring.

It’s enough. The target staggers, threads of blood hanging down. He looks at the soldier, his face blank, maybe even calm. The soldier doesn’t like (doesn’t matter what he likes) looking at their faces, the eyes shining like steel needles, the parted mouths. But this face is drained now, because the soldier was made to never miss, and he’s sliced all the bad thoughts clean when the second bullet bounced through the target’s brain like a pebble going rattle rattle rattle inside a shell.

Bad thoughts. Bad things. The doctor

_(wasn’t there)_

wouldn’t have sent the soldier after him otherwise.

A swipe of the metal fist sends the target to the floor, where he slumps like a sack of flour. It will be very quick now.

The soldier has bad thoughts, too, sometimes. There’s a machine that cuts them out. It’s better afterwards.

After the body stops, he makes his way downstairs again. He needs to wrap the body up so he can carry it. Then he will

_(wipe)_

scrub everything until there are no prints, no blood. Then the body will go in the car and the car is going to blow up, the gas tank ignite so fast the explosion is going to sear flesh away and shatter bone.

After that there will be nothing. Nothing at all.

The door. The soldier senses the rattle of keys even before he hears it. He abandons his task and darts soundlessly to the top of the stairs, where he can see without being seen. He is fast, much faster than anyone. The Derringer is already in his hand. Two shots, but he only needs one.

It’s a child.

A boy, maybe twelve. He’s as loud as the soldier is silent as he opens and closes the door, tosses the keys into a dish, traipses across the foyer.

The soldier can see the Derringer’s barrel shaking. He holsters the gun. His fingers hover near a knife handle.

The mission briefing, the words and pictures the doctor put in his head, said nothing about a child.

The doctor wasn’t there.

No witnesses.

Below, the boy hops around on one foot as takes his shoes off and dumps a bag on the floor. ‘Dad?’ he calls out. He doesn’t see the soldier, doesn’t hear him, doesn’t smell him. ‘You still home? They let us out early.’

The soldier doesn’t (can’t) think about things. He has the mission. He has his purpose. The doctor

_(wasn’t there)_

makes sure

_(he wasn’t there he wasn’t there)_

of that.

He has terminated the target. He can leave now. Disappear.

The boy moves towards the kitchen.

The soldier must get rid of the

_(dad?)_

body.

No witnesses.

The soldier’s body rushes downstairs. He watches. He is a passenger. The boy lets out a squeak of fear and surprise as the soldier’s arm grabs him, then yelps

_(no no no no no)_

louder as the blade slashes his side. An arc of blood sprays on the floor.

_(stop)_

_(stop)_

_(stop it stop itstopSTO—)_

‘Stop.’ The boy has landed on the floor and is trying to get away, smearing red behind him, before the soldier realises the word has come out from his own muffled, muzzled mouth. He looks down

_(you are who are you)_

_(you kn—)_

at his hands, one metal, one flesh, both blood-speckled. A bead of scarlet slips down the steel. His right hand is still holding the knife. Combat knife. It is a war. He is a soldier in a war.

_Not a war. Not children._

The thought goes off like a flare inside his skull, and the pain spills into his eyes. He is not supposed to think like this. He is not supposed to have these things, scuttling about inside. The bad thoughts. The doctor takes the bad thoughts away. _Bad. Wrong. Sick._ The soldier is all these things. That is why he has to do what the doctor tells him. The doctor wasn’t there. The things the doctor tells him to do are—

‘No,’ he whispers.

He has said a bad word, but it didn’t slice his lips in half when it came out.

‘Get away from me,’ the boy says, as he crawls away on the floor. The soldier can smell his terror, coppery like the trail of blood, but when the boy cries out again it’s not at the soldier. ‘Dad. Dad.’

There is a thump upstairs. The soldier can hear it even if the boy can’t. He walks around the boy and up the stairs. He can hear a whimper and a gasp behind him. He doesn’t look back.

The man isn’t dead. 

One in the abdomen, another in the head. The soldier didn’t miss. The soldier never misses. The man—the _target_ —should be dead, blood dripping from his head, soaking his shirt, smeared all over the grey carpet. The soldier can see bone shards, flecks of grey matter. The man crawls, wild-eyed, dribbling sound. Slumps to the floor. His hand opens and closes.

The soldier still has his knife, the edges dark with blood. He has to complete the mission. A slice across the man’s throat. Airway, blood vessels. A plunge into his liver. Cold tightens inside the soldier.

He doesn’t know what’s wrong, what needs to be fixed.

When he

_(stop)_

knifes the liver, the blood that will ooze out will be dark and slow. He remembers—

—crawling.

He is trembling.

_The doctor—_

He must be fixed. He must fix this.

‘Leave him alone!’ The boy has managed to climb up the stairs and has dragged himself in front of the man’s body.

_Finish it._

_Not!! There!!_

A starburst of pain blinds the soldier: a wad of cotton on his fingers a blond boy no a blond man wiping blood off his nose shaking his head come on let’s clean you up at least I don’t have a black eye I know I can’t afford the steak laughter can’t take you anywhere—

The soldier’s hand fastens on the boy’s mouth just as he begins to scream. The knife is on the floor. The boy’s face is wet with fear and hot with anger and he tries to fight, but no one can’t fight the soldier.

‘Shh.’

A man telling him that. A girl. Hair ribbon. Pencils. Woman reading a book aloud.

The doctor was—

The doctor—

_This is not—_

_This is not who you—_

The boy’s panicked heartbeats slow and he goes limp, weak from too little blood, too little air.

Pain ripples inside the soldier’s head again. He can’t see anything. He can see sunlight, snow, smoke. The mission. The mission is:

Stop this.

This cannot stand.

Pick on someone—

He hears the mask clatter to the floor. His hand must have pulled it off. Words bubble up. They feel odd in his throat, and so he must get them out.

‘All right,’ he says to the boy, but his voice sounds ugly to his own ears, rusty with disuse. The boy is half-unconscious. He can only let out a soft little moan as the soldier carries him into his bedroom.

He has stepped into the wrong bedroom. This one belongs to a girl, a pleated skirt folded on the back of a chair, a pair of mary janes peeking out from under the purple bedspread, colourful books on a shelf. But it is the right bedroom. The soldier knows because there are stars. He knows the stars mean something. The stars are important.

More half-memories jab the inside of his eyes, then slip out of reach. A girl again. A flash of light, breaking metal, a whiff of ghost-smoke, red. _One of those_. One of those what?

‘It’s all right,’ he says again, as he lays the boy down on the bed and fashions a sheet into a bandage.

_You used to do…_

What? What did he use to do? What did he use to be? He is the soldier. There is nothing before the soldier, only there is. The memory scuttles about under his skin like a trapped insect. It makes him Sick. Bad. Wrong. He is a weapon. He is a wonderful weapon.

His metal hand has torn an edge of fabric to shreds.

He makes a sound, but the boy can’t hear him. There is a trail of blood across the floor, the rug, pointing at the bed. The soldier picks up the rest of the torn sheet, follows.

The man is on the landing outside, dead, cooling, open-mouthed, open-eyed. (He doesn’t like their faces.)

The soldier looks down at the blood, brown on the carpet, red on

_(flesh)_

the stairs. There is somewhere he has to go. He runs the torn sheet over the steps as he walks downstairs. There is something he has to do.

He has to—

—wipe it off.

He opens his eyes.

He is looking at a telephone sitting on a side table. He can hear a clock tick tick tick slicing time away, and looks at the telephone again. He doesn’t remember using one before, but he knows how to do it, so he must have. There is a fat book on a shelf under the phone, and inside the book there are rows and rows of numbers, on yellow paper thin as onionskin. A page near the beginning says Emergency Numbers. Is this what this is, an emergency? He looks at the coiled phone cord, the holes in the rotary plate staring at him like eyes. Wires mean pain, but he trusts them. He knows what they do. He knows he needs them.

He dials the number. Blood drips onto the phone in fat droplets.

‘State your emergency,’ a woman says on the other end of the line. Her voice crackles a little. He knows that too.

The words trickle out. ‘Forty-nine Sycamore Lane. He’s still alive.’

He lets the handset drop, wanders towards the driveway. There is the car. They will see him. He doesn’t care that they will see him. He needs the car. He needs to go. Where? The man inside his head, telling him _shh_. Not doing things to him. He doesn’t know who he is, who the blond man is. He doesn’t need to know anything that isn’t the mission. He breaks into the car, slides into the driver’s seat. His hands fasten on the steering wheel, not tightly, but he hears the plastic crack. Another jab of pain, behind his right temple: a city called New York. He knows it exists, he has always known it existed, but it _matters_.

His head hurts. He isn’t supposed to hurt. Hurt others.

_Save. You gotta save—_

_Who?_

Who?

New York. The city called New York. He hot-wires the car, which is easy enough to do with the metal hand, then drives away. He knows how to drive a car, drive a truck. Ride a bike, fly a plane. The knowledge bulges inside his skull. In a moment the bone will crack and it’ll all spill out.

The doctor. The doctor pulled him out of the dead. He doesn’t like the living. That is why he has no past, no name, no family.

_You have a name. You have…_

It is too hard to think. He focuses on the mission: New York. He follows the signs telling him how to leave this city

_(philly you know philly remember when we)_

and get to the target. Soon enough the traffic thickens, a sea of chrome fixtures hazy in the heat, and sweat pools under his body armour. He knows what is happening. Without the doctor, he is starting to come apart. His skin will flake off, his bones crumble. His insides will fill up with loose wires and mould. He can feel the start of it: great big splotches of purple and blue in his eyesight, a tremor that has started deep in his flesh and is spreading outwards. His throat is sandpaper-dry.

New York. He needs to go to New York. There is someone he needs to see, to save. His father? Did he have one? Is that the blond man? A brother? The girl, the woman? Images curdle and sting just behind his right temple, always out of reach. He wishes he could just claw them out.

The car runs out of gas soon, and he pushes it into an empty dirt road before carrying on on foot, guiding himself by the turnpike and its constant rumble of traffic. He stays out of sight but he knows his appearance will draw their (whose?) attention once he reaches places thick with people. When he slips through a town scattered around the main roads he rummages through the dumpsters behind a cluster of warehouses and finds first a jacket with a hole, then a pair of old pants. They’ll do, even though they fit poorly and smell of day-old fried clams.

How does he know that? Is he hungry? His stomach tightens, his head sways, and he throws up behind the dumpster, the sound of his retching drowned out by the rumble of traffic.

His punishment is going to be something he can’t even imagine. His stomach clenches again, but instead of vomiting he just coughs up some more burning fluid. It bubbles in his mouth and nose. He hides his two guns under the jacket, straps his remaining knife above one of his boots, where he can reach it easily. He starts walking.

The sky darkens with clouds, only they’re not clouds, it’s the ice-sleep, numbing him, numbing everything.

He opens his eyes.

Now it’s dark, real dark, the kind with stars, and he’s shivering again. The pants’ legs and his boots are soaked and leaves cling to his clothes. Has he been walking through bushes, wading through water? Cold darts through him. He checks for the guns, the knife. Still there. His hand, the real one, is smeared with something that looks like oil, but he knows from the smell it’s blood. There’s some on his mouth too.

New York. The mission. He has the mission. Overhead, a plane roars past. He can only see tarmac and the sodium haze of lights and the black slickness of water, but he knows he’s getting closer. It only takes until daylight for him to see the shape of the city. He does not recognise it, but here and there there are shards, like the ones digging through the inside of his head.

The doctor wasn’t there. The doctor can see him, everywhere, out of glass, the sheen of the sun on tarmac, headlights, the silver haze of water on the

_(island)_

horizon. The doctor is seeing him through all these people who walk past him and pretend not to notice, women, men, children, sunglasses, squinting, beards, white hair. He slinks further out of sight, to where it’s most shadowy. The sun beats down, burnishing everything, even streets clogged with cars and dotted with trash.

Terrible things will happen. Terrible things.

He stows away on a ferry, makes his way towards the place where the towers tear into the sky. Names rip through the inside of his head like slow bullets. He can feel them cut through blood vessels, grey matter. Through steel. _Staten Island. Hudson._ (Person? Place?) There are too many people. Threat, threat, lower threat, higher threat, threat. Too much noise, too many cars, too many smells. He doesn’t know this park, these streets, the towers of glass reaching up too high, the pointing cameras like guns.

The bridge. He knows the bridge. He has to stay out of sight, head low, metal hand in his pocket, but on the bridge he is hemmed in by girders and granite. He wants to break into a run. No, being hemmed in is Good. Being in the chair, the ice. The dark.

It’s not dark here. It’s sunny. He passes boats, piers, flower sellers, yellow cabs, a woman hosing down a sidewalk, rows and rows of houses. He knows these houses. He doesn’t. The air smells of exhaust. A paper under a marquee catches his eye. The poster is full of dark shapes and he walks fast, but he can read the names. Steve McQueen. Ali—

Steve.

There is a wrong thing inside his chest. He can feel it beat against his ribs.

Steve, was that his name? Is that his name?

He doesn’t have a name.

What has been done to him?

_What has been done to you?_

_Me._

He opens his eyes.

He is in a park and it’s twilight. He can smell caged animals, hear the din of traffic. Ahead of him there are trees.

Out of sight he will be able to pull them out, the things beating loudly inside his right temple. He has been chasing them all day, he knows. Following them down alleyways, around street corners. He must have.

He is shaking again. His vision is blurry, there’s an iron band of pain around his head, a smaller ache in his legs, his stomach, his throat, his back. He needs the doctor to fix him. He needs the doctor to fix him soon.

He is never going back.

Dead is better.

There are people boxing him in. Two in front, two more behind. They are pretending to be a man in a suit hurrying somewhere, a man and a woman in brightly-coloured shirts pushing a baby chair, blending in. But they move too stiffly, their pace too similar. The baby chair is too covered up for hot weather. What’s inside? Guns? Knives? Ropes? Grenades?

His body may be starting to fall apart, but he knows that the loop of footpath up ahead is where they’ll make their move. He slows down, doubles back towards where there are more people (balloons, ball game), then darts into a darker spot under tree branches before breaking into a run across the woods.

He can slip through their fingers. He can just disappear.

He crosses a footpath, then edges out of sight again when he notices a pile of rags on a bench. No, not rags—a body, which stirs. He slows down, watches for a threat. There are only a few last embers of sunlight, but it doesn’t matter. He can see almost in full darkness.

The body slumps off the bench and onto the ground. It’s an old woman, stick-thin, a sour alcohol smell clinging to her. She struggles on the ground, then stops in confusion.

He has to run.

Threat?

_Help her?_

_?_

He edges out of the trees, soundless. There is the footpath. He can run down the footpath.

The old woman is still on the ground.

He senses the electricity even before it starts. It spreads out from his metal arm, races through his body, knocks him down, makes him convulse and choke.

It’s over. He tastes dirt and blood, reaches for a gun, a knife. His left arm doesn’t work. His right one, only barely. His hand jerks, almost out of his control, and there’s fire spreading under his skin, through his wrist, up his arm, but if he can reach, if he can just reach…

The old woman isn’t an old woman at all. Did he always know that? He must have.

Fire. Sting. Needle-prick.

The world around him starts to spin.

His hand flops down. He tastes dirt again.

He feels himself be lifted, herded. His legs move out of his control. He can only see branches, a swatch of dark sky.

He can’t stop this. Doesn’t even know how.

It’s better this way, he supposes. Everything is as it should be.

The barrel of a gun is pressed under his ribs. ‘Be quiet.’

He couldn’t scream if he wanted to. His tongue lies in his mouth, a dead weight like his body.

Even so he manages to squirm when he’s dragged away. He manages to fight them a little.

The world spins faster, then his head is forced into a hood. He can feel himself being bound and shoved into—a van? A truck?

This time he does want to make noise, but instead of words or a shout, only a dribble of spit comes out. Breathing is hard, and he wishes he could make himself stop, but his chest keeps rising and falling, drawing in air.

It’s Good, though. Good that he can’t move, good that he’s hog-tied and pressed face down on a hard metal floor stinking of motor oil. This way maybe it means he didn’t completely want it. Not _completely_. Maybe it’s not entirely his fault (it is).

Light blinds him. He’s come to in the chair, the one that scrubs the inside of his head. The metal arm is gone, transformed into jaws holding him in place.

The machine closes around him.

He can makes sounds again. Yell. Beg. Scream. It doesn’t matter.

Better this way.

The electricity races through his head, his skin, his nerves, and this time it burns, this time it will _kill_ him, it _will_ , he hopes it w—

+++

light

fire

black water ice

blackout

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Putting all the annotations for the previous five chapters/sections here at the end of Part I so as not to break the flow. So, chapter 10: Bucky humming—he’s probably not even aware he’s doing it—is once again a reference to the _Cold Case_ episode _The Road_ (season 5, episode 15), where it was a sign that one of John Smith’s victims wasn’t completely broken yet. “Yet” being the operative word in Bucky’s case, it seems. The General is a shout-out to General Karpov from the comics. Obviously 616!Bucky and MCU!Bucky have very different backstories, not just in general—to the point I see them as different characters to a certain extent—but also specifically wrt the creation of the Winter Soldier… but I thought it would be an amusing little touch nonetheless. Hey, in Ed Brubaker’s CA:TWS cameo he got to fry his fave’s brain, my sense of humour is totally unobjectionable in comparison. ;)
> 
> Chapter 12: In case the date doesn’t make it clear, the 1964 mission is supposed to be Bucky’s first Winter Soldier assassination. His unease around heights is taken from the comics. Comics!Bucky is afraid of heights and, in my head-canon, so is MCU!Bucky. It probably has something to do with the plunge into an icy chasm, igss… The drowning a target in a bathtub thing is also from the comics. (Oh, and for the terminally curious, the people he kills are either Russian nationals (possibly defectors), British nationals, or American nationals, and this takes place in Hong Kong. I tried to think of what would be the most shit-stirring thing for Hydra to do, and obviously the first answer was sending Bucky to personally pee in LBJ’s coffee. But that might be beyond even their powers, so they had to settle for sending someone with a Soviet star on his arm to kill a foreign bigwig (and, as bad luck would have it) his wife in a British protectorate right next to the PRC. But seriously, they’re still bitter about that coffee thing.)
> 
> Chapter 14: The botched mission in 1973 references an equally botched mission in 1973 from the comics. There, Bucky was sent to the US, his conditioning slipped, and he ended up making his way to New York in what was possibly the world’s least fun road trip. He wandered around in the city for a few days, but since his memories were still gone, he was quickly picked up by his handlers again. Department X then decided not to send him on any further missions on US soil for fear this would happen again. In my fic, of course, I changed all this considerably, partly because of the obvious differences between the comics and the MCU, and partly because MCU!Bucky’s conditioning is quite different from comics!Bucky’s conditioning. MCU!Bucky also clearly doesn’t have any problem with US missions by the time the events of CA:TWS roll around—and by implication this was already the case in 1991, taking it as given that he really was involved in Howard and Maria Stark’s deaths—but even assuming, as I do, that Pierce’s hold on Bucky was much stronger than Zola’s, it made sense to me that the real catalyst for Bucky slipping his leash would be Zola’s death in 1972, followed by a mission likely to trigger some of his memories.
> 
> The song Bucky hears coming out of the car is indeed Marvin Gaye’s _Trouble Man_. Because it was released in November 1972 and I am a terrible person. ;) No, but seriously, the real reason I used it is because, as I see it, Bucky’s whole Winter Soldier plot line is basically a perversion and distorted reflection of what happens to Steve. The serum amplifies what’s already inside, yes, but whereas in Steve’s case his good qualities are put to good use, in Bucky’s case his good qualities (loyalty, care-taking, eagerness to do the right thing) and less good qualities (ability to compartmentalise/suppress things under his Cool Guy—reference very much intended—persona) all get turned against him in horrific ways. So it’s in keeping with the theme that a song Steve associates with someone he loves and trusts would of course be playing during one of the lowest points of Bucky’s life. Because that’s just how we roll in this fic! Speaking of rolling, the Steve McQueen/Ali McGraw film is _The Getaway_ (/ba-dum-tish). The lines in this and previous chapters about liking the dead better than the living come from James Whale’s _Bride of Frankenstein_ , which was actually a major inspiration for Part I of the fic.
> 
> Also, while I tried to make sure Bucky’s trip to New York, hallucinatory/disjointed as it is, is geographically accurate, I’ve never been to New York (and of course I can’t time-travel to the 70s!) so I do apologise for any mistakes.


	15. 1979

> As much as some people would like to believe, for their own peace of mind, that the appearance of evil in this world had a clean cause, the truth was never that simple.  
>  —Marisha Pessl, _Night Film_  
> 

**Part II: _Gods and Monsters_**

  
**1.**

**1979**  


_By the time of discovery, scavengers had already reached the subject._

‘Steady,’ he whispered. A breeze rustled the underbrush, freed a few strands of Alice’s dark hair from her ponytail, then settled them on the nape of her neck. This close behind her he could smell her floral shampoo, which annoyed him a little, even if they were downwind.

It pleased him more than it annoyed him, though. A reminder—as if he’d ever thought otherwise—of how quickly young people became reaccustomed to the comforts of home, regardless of how much their passions told them otherwise.

He nudged her elbow. She glanced at him, eyes widening a little, then nodded and adjusted the rifle’s position before she looked through the scope again, brow furrowed in concentration.

_Scavengers had already reached the subject._

On the other side of the clearing, a little over a hundred feet away, the deer raised his neck, shook his head, and let out a grunt. He was still young, but he had to be two-hundred and fifty pounds at the very least. Pierce thought of the first time he’d seen a deer up close, a real one, not one in the cartoon reels he’d watched as a kid. Smaller than this one, but to a ten-year-old the buck had been enormous, all muscle and coarse-haired skin and sharp animal smell.

‘Ready the shot,’ he said. The two of them were so still even the birds didn’t notice them.

The deer lowered his head, antlers pointing towards them—it was still too early in the season for him to shed them—and went back to grazing.

_Scavengers._

That line had kept bobbing up ever since he’d read the file, which bothered him a little. It felt foolish, and Alexander Pierce wasn’t a foolish man. He supposed it was the sheer… primitiveness of the thing. Bumping into a man, of sorts, who had been nibbled on. It was like finding out that, in this day and age of Concorde flights and credit cards and urban sprawl, someone had been devoured by wolves in the Washington Mall. He couldn’t help but wonder exactly what had begun eating that strange morsel. He wasn’t sure if there had been wolves in the Austrian Alps thirty years ago, but of course all kinds of animals ate carrion, even carrion that wasn’t quite dead yet.

Deer would eat bird chicks from time to time.

Alice braced for recoil and squeezed the trigger. The shot drove a flurry of birds off the trees. The deer bellowed, tossed his head back, and staggered forward. Pierce could see the place where he’d been hit, like a daub of paint on the fur.

‘You just missed his heart,’ he said. Alice looked at him, expressionless, then lowered the rifle, opened the break-action, and reached for the spent cartridge.

Another shot rang out just behind them. The deer feel forward, onto his knees, and finally thudded to the ground. Pierce turned to his guest, glad to have an excuse to look away. The hunt was necessary, of course: culling the excess, keeping the balance and all that. The meat would go to the staff, some of it in the form of his wife’s excellent pies. And, when circumstances required it, he had never hesitated to end an animal’s suffering with a well-placed bullet, or a quick slice of a bowie knife.

That did not mean, however, that he had to enjoy it.

‘Great shot, Harry.’

‘Alice there bagged him,’ the other man said as he stepped closer to them, his gun held in the crook of his arm. Senator Thomas J. Harrison, Minority Whip, acquaintance of everyone and friend of all the right people, elder statesman even though he still had only a little grey in his dark hair, and the kind of man whose first bit of advice to Pierce when he’d first arrived in the State Department had been _Never fuck the interns. Pony up for a professional, for Christ’s sake_. ‘Nice shot, by the way.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ she said, then added, ‘I prefer Liss.’

Pierce threw her a sharp glance. She knew what he thought of her new idiotic little nickname, so why she insisted on it, he couldn’t even guess. She lowered her eyes. ‘Well, her shot went a little wide. Let’s get back to the lodge.’

Alice opened her mouth. ‘Let’s get back to the lodge,’ Pierce repeated, and she closed it. She kept it mostly closed during the jeep ride back to the lodge, gaze lost in the tree line. She had been like that ever since Bogotá, dripping around the house—no question of her returning to school or work just yet—like a ghost. Pierce watched her as much as he could while keeping up with Harrison’s chatter, and he felt his heart tighten. If he had lost her… He had pointed out often that he’d told her so, of course, that he’d warned her plenty of times even before he’d arranged things at the Department so he could at least keep an eye on her for part of her little foreign adventure. It had been no use, needless to say. Young people thought all it took to save the world was a year abroad and some enthusiasm.

But if he had lost her.

If Nick hadn’t—

He shook the thought away. All that mattered was what was, not what could have been. Behind his daughter, the deer’s tongue lolled out of its mouth, and one of its dead eyes was fastened on the sky. _Scavengers._ Pierce did not believe in fate, but one did not spend a decade as a S.H.I.E.L.D. field agent without coming to think that there was a kind of providence, a _rightness_. If Marshal Tolbukhin had crossed the Austrian border a little earlier or a little later, if his men hadn’t come across a spot of red in the snow that turned out to be a body, half-alive when it should have been wholly dead. If Ribbentrop hadn’t finally got his treaty signed in the small hours of a late August morning and Hydra hadn’t slipped in right behind him, the first little tick in the Russian bear. If, if, if…

All things served a greater purpose.

The light meal waiting for them back at the lodge was a quick affair. Laura said the usual polite things about the weather and the senator’s family, but otherwise had as little of importance to add as ever. Pierce had long since resigned himself to the fact that he had married a surprisingly stupid woman. And to think that they’d met when she’d been at Vassar and they’d spent nights talking about Mailer and Mary McCarthy. Thankfully, unlike their mother, both his children were remarkably clever, a quality he regularly praised them for. He was baffled by those men who tried to stamp out intelligence in their daughters.

By the time he and Harrison withdrew to the lodge’s old smoking room, Pierce couldn’t help but feel a little antsy. He disguised it thoroughly, of course, kept his motions calm and disciplined as he poured them some scotch.

‘Hail Hydra,’ Harrison said.

‘Hail Hydra.’ Pierce didn’t think he was ever going to find the phrase anything other than embarrassing, though at least it beat the honest-to-goodness initiation ceremony he’d had to go through, as a new high-ranking member. He had even started to let doubts creep in until Harrison had come along afterwards, out of his robes and carrying a bottle and two glasses. _If I’d wanted to wear aprons and do hand signs I’d have joined the Freemasons, Harry_ , Pierce had said. Harrison had laughed. _I honestly think they’re just doing it to keep the robes from getting moth-eaten. Anyway, I’ll talk to the Baron. Bottoms up._

And that had been that.

‘Cigar?’

‘Cohiba Cubanos?’ Harrison said, and took a cigar out of the box.

‘There’s a trade embargo with Cuba, Harry,’ Pierce said, and snapped the box shut. ‘I hope you’re not suggesting I’d use my position in the DoS to get around that.’

Harrison slid the tip of the cigar into the cutter. ‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ he said, with a faint smirk. Pierce ignored it. He had always found Harry’s little smirks a tad irritating. ‘Not having one yourself, Al?’

‘I don’t smoke,’ Pierce said, by way of explanation.

It was not until the room was thick with cedar-scented smoke and they were on their second tumbler of bourbon that Pierce placed the file on the table. Harrison said nothing and, very gently, swirled around the last finger of amber liquid inside his glass.

‘Project Winter Soldier,’ Pierce said, finally, as though that would loosen the Senator’s tongue.

‘Now there’s a blast from the past.’ He glanced at Pierce, deliberate and slow. ‘Someone has been busy. Doing some catch-up reading?’

‘I like to take an interest.’

Harrison said nothing for a few seconds, then spoke again. ‘What a name, huh? What would our friends at the CCI say if they heard it? Slap us with a lawsuit?’

‘I want to see him.’ _It?_ What was the proper way of referring to the asset, he wondered.

‘Forget it, Al.’ Harrison took one last puff on his cigar and stubbed it out on the ashtray sitting by the file. ‘Our friend there is as useful as a goddamn cat-flap in the elephant house. I’m surprised you even found the project files.’ Pierce was sure Harrison was going to speak again, but he added nothing.

‘Come on, Harry. If he’s so useless, why are we bothering to keep him on ice?’

‘Oh, Zola always thought he could make more of him. Failure every time, of course, but still, the march of science or some crap or other. He gets mined for samples once in a while. I suppose it’s easier to keep him on ice than to find out five years down the line that you didn’t save enough blood or whatever for your big thing, but to be honest I’m not sure I buy it. Waste of everybody’s time. All the eggheads love the assignment, mind you. Get paid to sit around and look at popsicles and screens. Shit, I’d love the assignment too.’

‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll be able to swing a few more working lunches, Harry.’

Harrison chuckled, went on. ‘I don’t think the Baron even realises our frosty friend is still stashed somewhere, otherwise he’d have pulled the plug a long time ago. No pun intended.’ He took one last swig of his drink and brushed a piece of invisible lint off his trousers.

‘I’m sure we won’t go bankrupt over a freezer. Maybe if I chip in a few bucks for the bill…’ That got a snort of amusement. Well, time to be serious. ‘Zola had a great deal of success with him, didn’t he? Ten missions, ten perfect kills. In and out like a ghost. Of course, there were a few things in the files about missions above my clearance level,’ he added pointedly. ‘Were those—’

‘Those went fine.’ The senator’s gaze focused on a point above Pierce’s shoulder, beyond the wall of the lodge. ‘Listen, Al, this is above your pay grade, so you’re not going to say you heard it, and if you do, I’m going to deny it ever came from me. Understood?’

Pierce responded with an almost imperceptible nod of his head.

‘I’ll cut straight to the chase: they couldn’t control him without Zola.

‘After the good Professor kicked the bucket, they all thought they just had to keep doing what they’d always done. They had the standard operating procedures, they had the tapes with Zola’s voice to prime the asset before the mission briefing. So they pull him out of cryo. This was back in ’73, by the way. They prime him, even run a whole lot of—what’s it called? Conditioning? Whatever it was, they did it. Keep it safe, you know the drill. Everything seems normal, I mean, as normal as it gets with Murder Pops, so they give him the assignment.’ He paused, looked Pierce in the eye. ‘You know they kept moving him, right?’

Pierce nodded. One of the first things he had learned about Hydra, the first thing that let him know it was right, was the fact that they had gone beyond flags, borders, warring nation-states. They weren’t everywhere. But from that first seed at the heart of S.H.I.E.L.D. they had spread shoots through enough of the powers and the super-powers. The new world was already being built, under the feverish, crumbling skin of the old one.

So too with the asset. Sometimes he’d been with Hydra’s people in the Soviets’ Department X, sometimes deep within S.H.I.E.L.D., brief sojourns with the British, the French, both Germanies. Zola had travelled a lot, under all kinds of names. And if someone had ever noticed anything irregular in his cover stories or his papers, well, who cared about a dumpy little professor and his conferences on enzymes and plant genetics? It all added to the mystique, in any case. Since no government, no bio-weapons facility, no spy shop in the world could know with confidence that they owned the asset, in the sober light of day, the intelligence community did not even acknowledge his existence. The few that did dismissed it as a spook’s spook story, pointed out that alleged sightings had the assassin working for wildly different interests. Something for when you wanted to mess with baby operatives and didn’t think they’d fall for the redacting carbon paper prank. After a few drinks, however, there were those few old warhorses who would say they’d seen him, caught a glimpse of him in Stanleyville, or Prague, or Tehran. He lived on as rumour.

What a blessed existence that must be.

‘That time he was being stashed in D.C.,’ Harrison went on. Pierce perked up but said nothing. ‘Job was in Philly.’

‘And they didn’t think—’

‘Oh, they thought, but he’d already done a job in US soil, so I guess they didn’t think they’d run into any problems. Mind you, that was California.’ He sounded and looked both faintly irritated and faintly amused at the idea of the mission having been carried out in his constituency.

He didn’t seem to realise that there had been nothing about a California mission in the files Pierce had read. _Above my clearance level_ , Pierce thought, and ferreted it away for future use.

‘The East Coast turned out to be a different story.’ Harrison trailed off.

Pierce didn’t want to rise to the bait, but he couldn’t help himself. Better get this over with. ‘He didn’t eliminate the target?’

‘No, he whacked him all right. He just botched everything after that. Mind if I have some more of your excellent bourbon, Al? My throat’s running a bit dry.’

Pierce waited as the other man poured himself another two fingers of bourbon. Dusk didn’t last long this far south; the last few embers of sunlight were slinking out of the room, leaving inky shadows behind.

After a few leisurely moments, Harrison went on. ‘There was a witness at the scene. That shouldn’t have been a problem, because getting rid of any witnesses was part of the brief, but our pal just injured him. Then he went ahead and patched him up, can you believe it? After that he gave us the slip. Didn’t show at the pick-up point, nothing. If he hadn’t called 911 from the target’s home…’

Pierce couldn’t keep a note of surprise out of his voice. ‘He called 911?’

‘Yeah, he can talk. Or at least he could, back in the day. Of course, it was all bats in the belfry, but the idea was for him to be able to reason his way through missions, say whatever needed to be said. Lord knows if that’s still the case, mind you. After we picked him up again, they fried his brain so hard we probably got ourselves a freezer with a whole lot of vegetable. Doesn’t even matter we no longer have Zola around to keep him on a leash.’

The question hadn’t been about that, but Pierce wasn’t about to correct him. He had wanted to know how the asset had figured out which number he needed to dial. Emergency numbers hadn’t existed back when the asset had still been just a man. They were of much more recent vintage—Pierce still remembered the FCC briefs. _It’s not just bats in the belfry, Senator_ , he thought, but he was not about to say it out loud.

Harrison took another swig. ‘We picked up on the call, thank God. Mind you, it was an ungodly mess, we had to send in the cleaning lady to get rid of the loose ends, nearly had the whole thing spill out. Still, cut off one head…’

‘… two more will take its place,’ Pierce finished.

‘Right. We ended up picking him up in New York a day or two later, managed to triangulate the tracking signal in his arm. He’d stolen a car but abandoned it when it ran out of gas, just wandered around after that. Turned into a homing pigeon without Zola, I guess. That’s where the asset—the asset’s body, I guess you’d call it, came from. Queens, I think.’

‘Brooklyn. Brooklyn Heights.’

‘Sure,’ Harrison said, with a dismissive expression. ‘He tried to give us the slip again when the team found him, but good luck with that. So we pick him up. And stick him back on ice.’

‘And nobody tried—’

‘Jesus, Al, of course we tried. We’re not talking about a pack of gum here. We _invested_ in that bastard. So one year after the New York escapade his handlers take him out of cryo. This was the same crew who’d worked with Zola here in the US, but that did as much good as a screen-door in a submarine. The asset wouldn’t cooperate with the conditioning, all kinds of weird readings in their—their instruments, I guess. They call them bleeds. Things poking through, even though his brain must have been scrambled eggs by this point. Lost dog looking for its master? Who knows. They stuck him back on ice. Again. And that was that.’

‘That wasn’t in the file. Was it—’

‘Classified? No. I think they just shredded everything. What was the point in keeping it? So.’ Harrison placed the empty glass on the coffee table. ‘Five years. Personally I think we’ve got everything we were ever going to get from him. Goddamn shame, but do you know what the Soviets are doing? Breeding themselves a new breed of operative, pardon the pun and excuse my French. When I heard about it I thought they were honest-to-shit going to resurrect the corn man to have someone to face off with the peanut farmer, but apparently they’re dead serious. Hoping to have the first batch within the next five years and everything. Lord knows they need it, with this ungodly mess those sad bastards have got coming down the pipeline in Afghanistan.’

‘We wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with either of those, would we?’ Pierce said, his tone light. Harrison’s faint smile told him everything he needed to know.

Pierce let a reasonable amount of silence slip by before he spoke again. ‘Still. If we could reactivate the asset.’

‘Good luck with that. Good luck without Zola. Shit, good luck _with_ Zola.’

‘Come on, Harry. Imagine how handy we’d have found him in Chile. Or this business that’s going on with the hostages…’

‘Don’t you mean “you”, Al?’ Harrison said, with a sharp glance.

In the months since Pierce had been welcomed into the fold, he and Harrison had gone through this dance on occasion. A quick reminder of who stood where. ‘Of course,’ he said, smooth and cool as glass.

The other man relaxed into his armchair again. ‘I know, it’s a real pity. After all that work getting him into shape, too.’

Pierce had carefully studied the work in question, even if he was not wholly familiar with the file’s overabundance of biological and psychological jargon. Hippocampus pruning. Axonal modification. Psychogenic amygdala modulation. Operant conditioning. Reflexive action. It struck him as more heat than light. The clearing of all the debris from the asset’s mind, that he agreed with. Most people had accumulated too much nonsense in their heads by the time they were eight, let alone twenty-eight. The wipes thus served a double practical purpose. They had got the asset back to a state where he could be shaped right, of course, but they had also freed him from his burden of memories, all the ruts of unthinking habit. Everything else, though? Smoke and mirrors.

He was not a prejudiced man, and he would hardly argue about the mechanics of the cryo-tube, or the asset’s physical calibration. But he understood people, and how simple they could be once you knew how instinctively they yearned for someone who gave them a firm sense of place, of purpose, of belonging. He might have studied history instead of any of Zola’s sciences, but he doubted there was anything in Zola’s papers that couldn’t be better learned in Thucydides. Or parenting, for that matter.

‘Let me try,’ he said.

‘With the—’

‘What do we have to lose, Harry?’

‘Time. Resources better spent elsewhere.’ He assumed the expression of a headmaster calmly rebuking his star pupil. ‘You know he was dangerously unstable the last time he was taken out of cryo? I don’t want to have to explain to a Senate subcommittee the whys and wherefores of the Deputy Secretary of State getting strangled by a maniac. That’s the sort of thing that puts a real damper on your reelection prospects.’

Pierce chuckled politely at that. ‘I will make sure to take the appropriate precautions. Just a skeleton team. Some armed guards.’

Harrison frowned. He was going to say no, Pierce knew. Better put all the pieces on the board. ‘Give me a year. If he’s not mission-ready within a year, then feel free to pull the plug. Or whatever protocol we follow under these circumstances. I’m sure Zola came up with one.’

‘Probably in triplicate,’ Harrison said with a faint smile.

‘I did hand-pick Deputy Director Fury,’ Pierce added.

‘You did indeed,’ Harrison said, and Pierce knew he had him. Perhaps he was not yet entirely convinced, but he would be.

‘You know, I couldn’t find anything much about what Zola was doing in the years before he died,’ Pierce said. ‘I thought he had kept on working right until the end.’

‘Oh, he did.’ Despite the bourbon, Harrison’s eyes were clear and sober. ‘Zebrafish, apparently.’

***

On the day the 40th Army started entering Kabul, Pierce’s secretary came into his office after she and the rest of the staff were supposed to have gone home. Even in the cloudy day Pierce could see the flush in her face. He always set up a generous wine and cheese spread for his employees on every holiday.

‘Anything wrong, Linda?’ Pierce turned his eyes away from the papers on his desk, for politeness’ sake. He would carry on working until it was late, then take the rest home to go over tomorrow and finally and firmly close his study’s door when it was time for the girls to open their presents.

‘Not at all, Mr Pierce. A card just arrived from Senator Harrison’s office.’ She already had her coat and gloves on. ‘I thought you’d want it before you left.’

‘Thank you, Linda,’ he said as he took the envelope. ‘That was very thoughtful. Give my regards to your mother.’ He took great care to know about the families of his employees, and to send appropriate small gifts on the right occasions. ‘Hope you enjoy the hamper.’

‘Thank you, Mr Pierce. I’m sure we will. Merry Christmas.’

‘Merry Christmas.’

He waited for a moment after the clack of her heels vanished down the corridor before he opened the envelope. His office and Harrison’s office had already exchanged cards this year, through the usual channels and on the usual date. Harrison had made a joke about going for real signatures one day soon and dumping the mimeographed ones on the constituents.

There was a real card inside, a winter scene with silver-edged snowflakes. Even before Pierce opened it, he could feel the weight, so he wasn’t surprised to see the key inside, the ExIm National logo engraved on its bow. A message had been scrawled inside the card.

_Merry Christmas, Al._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, in addition to exploring Pierce’s relationship with Bucky and how Alexander Pierce, Horrible Nightmare of a Human Being, has absolutely everyone fooled, in Part II I am also hoping to make some sense of Hydra’s actual ideology (speaking of horrible nightmares). As a committed anti-fascist, I’ve read quite a bit on fascist ideologies, but I admit I was pretty baffled by these douchewaffles. (Yeah, I know, I know, it’s a super-hero story. But one of my favourite things about CA:TWS is that it’s basically the super-hero version of a 70s political thriller, so hopefully I’ve come up with something coherent.) Also, because my mum did her post-grad work on the Cold War, lots and lots of 20th C history easter eggs are clearly my idea of a good time! :) I will mention, though, that Marshal Fyodor Tolbukhin was a real person, and his troops, the 3rd Ukrainian Front, did cross into Austria on the 30th March 1945, so it makes sense that in this fictional universe they would be the ones who found Bucky after he fell off the train on the 5th May 1945. I’m guessing they bumped into fewer frozen science experiments in real life, though. When Pierce mentions the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, that’s when Hydra first started putting down roots in the USSR, but the USSR had their own counterparts to Operation Paperclip etc later on, which would give Hydra many additional opportunities to find more cosy little nests (and get to work on rigging every Oscar night, idk). Also, yes, the maths with Harrison’s talk about the Soviets’ new breed of operative was on purpose, of course! Finally, the line _You just missed his heart_ is from the film _Hanna_.


	16. 1980

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter’s illustration is by **dark_roast** , click on the picture to go to her art post.

**2.**

**1980**

For all he had needled Harrison, Pierce waited almost three months until he finally saw the asset for the first time. He’d always been a man of method, of discipline. He took as long as he needed to study as much of the relevant files as he could, to carefully assemble the start of a team from the right people at S.H.I.E.L.D., to vet the handful of techs and scientists who had been maintaing the asset. A new decade began. The world went on with its coups, its bombings, its warfare.

Pierce bided his time.

In the end, he had to reassign two of the techs, and now, as his driver whisked him away for his meeting with a board member at the ExIm National, he carefully wound up the thread of nervous energy running through him.

This was an assignment for a certain kind of person.

Drew couldn’t keep some surprise out his voice as he and Pierce chatted—no doubt he saw this as Hydra asking him to dig up a fossil that had been left gathering dust in his vault—but once the formalities were over, he escorted Pierce down. The rotunda was marble, mahogany, and wealth. The vault underneath it was steel and concrete and a labyrinth of safe boxes, and the first secret room past it smelled faintly of damp and formaldehyde.

Pierce couldn’t help but think of all the times he’d walked and driven across the streets of D.C. when he had been more ignorant and naive, unknowing of this world tucked below, of the asset stored in his ice bed like a sleeping princess in a chamber of thorns.

The team was already assembled, a row of lab-coated people standing haphazardly at attention as though Pierce were about to inspect them. He had told the trio of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, who looked bored more than anything, to bring only small arms, and to keep them holstered.

A dumpy man stepped forward. He seemed to have been deputised as the scientists’ spokesman. ‘It’ll take about an hour for us to take the asset out of cryostasis, Deputy Pierce. Once the procedure is completed—’

‘I’d like to see him,’ Pierce said, and strode towards the room at the very back of the complex, where the asset was stored. The man struggled to keep up with him, his gym shoes squeaking on the linoleum floor. You’d think he would have dressed for the occasion. ‘And “Mr Pierce” will do.’

‘Er, the asset can be unstable after he is removed from cryo, Dep—Mr Pierce,’ he said. ‘He might—’

‘Yes, I understand. I read the file. I don’t think he’ll be giving us any trouble.’

Nobody voiced any mistrust, but he could feel it nonetheless, clogging up the air. He entered the room containing the cryo-tube, which he had expected to be more impressive. A metal cylinder with a frosted-up glass panel was almost a let-down. The machines connected to it managed to be more eye-catching.

He had to get up close, nose almost pressed against the glass, before he was able to see the face inside.

This was what the file had said, by way of a prologue: _Name: James Buchanan Barnes. DOB: March 10 1917. Father: George Madison Barnes, deceased. DOD: December 22 1930. COD: accident. Mother: Winifred Clara Barnes née Hayes, then Winifred Clara Barnes Raymond (1932), deceased. DOD: February 04 1948. COD: disseminated sclerosis._

What was inside the tube, frozen and still, had never had a name, a mother, a father. Like a corpse, he didn’t breathe, but Pierce had seen corpses before, and this didn’t have that same unmistakable slackness. He was looking at something in between, dead-alive. The skin was drained of colour; here and there, it was tinged with blue. Wings of dark hair hung down, half floating. A ghost, the old spies called him.

How accurate they were.

‘We can try doing a cryo-tube resus, then void it,’ the scientist said, butting into Pierce’s thoughts. ‘That’d be quickest.’

‘You mean, just empty the tube onto the floor? He’s not a lobster, son.’

That got some laughs, despite everything. The scientist looked a little flustered but just pushed his glasses higher up his nose and said nothing. Moments later, Pierce had to correct them all once again after they’d set up the warming tank and started wheeling in all kinds of machines and instruments, assembling rows of drug vials. ‘I don’t think those’ll be necessary.’

‘Professor Zola—’ another scientist began. This one had put on a freshly laundered lab coat but was wearing a Rolling Stones T-shirt underneath.

‘Professor Zola is no longer with us,’ Pierce said. ‘Just thaw him, make sure he’s alive and well. That’s all we’ll need.’ He turned to the armed S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. ‘You three, stand back.’

The room filled with a mineral smell and wisps of steam as the liquid in the tank warmed. The scientists’ motions were tight with tension as they worked, heating the tube, removing the asset, transferring him to the tank. Pierce watched, saying nothing. When he caught his first glimpse of the metal arm, he found it oddly beautiful, even with the tangle of plastic wires and leads, the LED lights, the hum of the machines. Screens and printouts went from empty to the rhythmic waves of heart and brain. After a while, the asset was transferred, naked and still dripping, from the tank to an examination table. His chest rose and fell.

 _You are all witnessing a modern miracle_ , Pierce thought, but saw little point in saying it. He doubted anyone else here could comprehend it, or had the ability to appreciate it if they did.

‘Is he ready?’ he asked. ‘Good. Bring me some towels.’ He stepped closer to the table. ‘And go to the back of the room. Please don’t argue.’

Little by little, the asset stirred back to life. His right hand twitched, his eyes rolled from side to side under their lids. A few shivers rippled through his body. Pierce stood over him all the while. He could feel an odd smell clinging to the asset, no doubt from the fluid still slicking his skin. It reminded him of salt water and formaldehyde.

The asset’s flesh hand shot out. It was still feeble, and Pierce had no trouble catching it in the towels.

‘It’s all right,’ he said.

The eyes opened, finally, just a sliver. Like the ice, they were a pale blue, and empty. Pierce released the hand and pressed the towels against the asset’s neck, dabbed at the fluid pooling on the table. ‘Everything’s all right,’ he repeated.

The asset sat up, so fast Pierce had to edge back and there was a clatter in the other end of the room as one of the scientists dropped something. Lines of ink spiked on printouts, machines beeped faster.

‘Settle,’ Pierce said, as firmly and gently as he could make it, which was very. The asset’s eyes darted to and fro, his muscles were tight with tension. He looked like a horse about to bolt.

‘Look at me. No, don’t look at those people. They don’t exist.’ He pressed the towels against the asset’s jaw, so he could turn his head to face him. Without the ice and the frost-rimmed glass, the asset looked younger, almost unnervingly so. ‘Shhh,’ Pierce whispered, gently rubbing the towels up and down the asset’s shoulder and neck. ‘Shhh. It’s safe.’

The asset blinked once, very slowly. The eyes were no longer as vacant as before. Instead they widened as they stared at Pierce. There was a flicker of confusion, perhaps. He seemed to be waiting for something.

 _Good._ He set the towels down on the table and turned around. ‘Do we have a blan—’

The asset bolted so fast the table upturned and Pierce had to jump back to avoid being struck. He heard guns being cocked. Ripped leads fell to the ground with soft plops.

‘Don’t!’ he yelled, and stepped in front of the agents, arms outstretched. They had all taken out their sidearms but were glancing at each other and Pierce for their orders, for reassurance. ‘Do not hurt him, agents,’ Pierce said, in his most commanding tone. ‘Stand down. Holster your weapons. That’s an order.’

These agents might not know him personally, but Pierce had spent enough time in S.H.I.E.L.D. brushing shoulders and sharing desks with colleagues who might have been these people, fifteen years removed. There was a certain posture, a certain tone of voice they responded to. The agents holstered their guns slowly, but they did it nonetheless. One of the scientists, a woman who looked like she’d just finished high school, had turned greenish.

Pierce looked at the asset. He had backed into a wall, the artificial arm—it really was strikingly beautiful under the fluorescent lights, a sculpture of steel and ice—held out in front of him like a weapon, or a shield. His other hand was curled into a fist, ready to strike, but his face was etched with fear and confusion, and a torn wire dangled above his crotch, the adhesive lead still stuck to his torso. He was solid and muscular, and Pierce knew he was much stronger than any of the agents, but his nakedness made him look smaller. If he killed everyone in the room, a possibility Pierce was acutely aware of, it would be the action of an animal lashing out in incomprehension.

‘Here. Look at me,’ Pierce said. The asset tensed, drew the metal arm back a fraction. One blow from it and Pierce would be on the floor with a broken skull, maybe even dead. The thought made him a little dizzy. He took a step forward. The asset tensed even more, but remained still. ‘Look at me. I know you aren’t sure what’s going on, but I’m not going to hurt you. I am unarmed.’ He held his hands out. ‘And nobody else is going to hurt you either. I won’t let them.’ A firm but reassuring tone, that was the trick. He’d spoken in much the same way to dogs, children, and horses. ‘Will someone get me a blanket?’ He never broke eye contact with the asset. ‘Anything soft for him to lie on.’

‘Umm.’ Rolling Stones T-shirt drew closer behind him. ‘We have this electric blanket, it’s for—’

‘Shut up.’

The asset startled a little at that. He looked around the room, his gaze bouncing wildly. ‘No, not you. Look at me. Come on. Focus,’ Pierce said. The blanket was pressed into his hands. The fabric was scratchy, but it would have to do. He held out the blanket in front of him, like someone trying to capture a stray pigeon. ‘You’re safe now. You can trust me. Come on.’

The asset pressed his back against the wall as Pierce stepped up to him, but he made no effort to keep him away. The metal arm lowered, until it was almost flush to his side. Before Pierce could put the blanket on him, though, his eyes clouded, rolled, and he tumbled forward.

Pierce caught him, but he was too heavy. The two of them nearly went sprawling. Before anyone could get near, he’d let the asset slide to the floor with a slap of flesh on linoleum and regained some of his composure. His suit was rumpled, the expensive cloth stained with the liquid from the tank, and he still felt the weight from where the metal hand had grabbed a fistful of his clothes. He felt a dash of anger at the half-man lying in a heap on the floor, but quickly dampened it. He turned to the scientists. ‘Is this normal?’

‘Theoretically, yes,’ said the first scientist. ‘Based on the time…’

‘Good. Everybody stay where you are, then.’ Pierce draped the blanket over the asset, who made a little animal sound low in his throat, then sat on the floor by his side. He considered crouching, but he was already going to pay a dry-cleaning bill. Better to retain a little dignity.

‘I know you haven’t been treated as you should,’ Pierce said, and rubbed the asset’s shoulder, the flesh one, through the blanket. The asset nudged his face towards him, his eyes half-closed but unblinking. ‘It wasn’t right. You did all that was asked of you and did it well. Hydra should thank you.’

A flash of certainty: the asset might be barely functional now but he would be mission-ready within the year, as he’d promised Harry. Maybe even sooner.

‘Things will be different from now on.’ He kept rubbing the asset’s shoulder, until his eyes closed fully. He wasn’t asleep. According to the file, the asset could function at peak level without sleep for much longer than an ordinary person; any periods of slumber outside of cryostasis were pure unconsciousness, something closer to a coma. Or death, Pierce supposed. He pulled his hand away from the empty body, wiped his palm absent-mindedly on his jacket. This close and blacked out, the asset looked younger than ever. His mouth was unusually full, like a woman’s, his eyelashes thick and long. Pierce wondered if Zola had selected him in part for his appearance, picked someone who might look appealing or unthreatening to a potential target.

But no, he knew that wasn’t the case. Zola hadn’t gone into his reasoning, but the file was clear enough: after several botched experiments on other PoWs, Zola had been given his final test subject because he was too ill from pneumonia and too weak from repeated beatings to be of any use in the factory. _Defiant towards guards_ , Zola had written. He had taken the care to type—using S.H.I.E.L.D. letterhead paper—and file an English transcript of his original notes in German. _Suggests poor compliance & problems w/ authority. Some confrontations in defence of other prisoners, pneumonia aggravated by giving up rations to future test subject 4._ _To consider w/ serum amplification effects. Exploitable_ (Here Zola had appended the same two penciled question marks as in the original. They were still legible after all those years.)

According to the file, test subject 4, like all the others before the asset, hadn’t made it.

‘Shall we wipe him?’

Pierce looked up. Now that the excitement was over, the little gaggle of scientists had approached again.

‘Goodness, no,’ Pierce said. ‘I want him to remember this.’ He stood up. It was harder to assume a stance of authority while sitting on the floor next to a napping assassin. ‘Just put him back on ice for now.’

His shin ached a little, and Pierce rolled up his trouser leg in the bank’s executive bathroom. The table had struck him after all, but the gash it’d left on his leg was only skin-deep.

[ ](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/marvel_bang_2014/works/2515286)

***

As soon as he could find the time, Pierce watched some of the footage Zola had made of his experiments with the asset. The film reels had been gathering dust in a S.H.I.E.L.D. archive vault for years; no one had even bothered to convert them into any of the new videocassette formats. He’d had to rig up a projector and a screen and now sat in his study, clear-headed despite the glass of scotch, curtains drawn even though the weather had grown warm and the air inside was stifling.

On the screen, Zola and two of his fellows sat at a table, behind a row of control panels, lit cigarettes in their hands. In the black and white film, the smoke looked ghostly.

The asset lay on an operating table below the three men. He was naked, but Pierce couldn’t think of anything less titillating or pornographic. His body was spotty with electrode leads, pinned and invaded by probes. His skin was less deathly pale and his hair was shorter, but otherwise he was unchanged from now, always in his twenties. The title cards and Zola’s droning introduction at the start of the film had said the footage had been shot aboard the classified S.H.I.E.L.D. ship _Atlantean_ , October 23 1953.

Zola asked the asset questions in an unchanging monotone. The asset answered in a raspy whisper. Once in a while Zola would place his cigarette in an ashtray, turn a dial in front of him, and send a jolt of electricity through the asset’s body. Zola would repeat the questions, phrase them slightly differently. At some point he asked the asset to tell him which letters and numbers were on a screen just outside the asset’s field of sight, and increased the length of the shocks with each wrong answer.

It was all very scientific, according to Zola’s explanation at the beginning. A series of tests meant to gauge the asset’s baseline responses, so he could be calibrated accordingly.

 _Sadistic little jerk_ , Pierce thought with a frown of disgust.

Still, it had to be said that the asset made no effort to free himself. He convulsed under the electricity’s bite, squirmed, made a few noises, but at no point did he try to break the restraints, something he could easily have done, given his strength. He was drugged, yes. Even if Zola hadn’t said so, you could tell from the glassiness of his eyes. But he was conscious and lucid enough to attempt to get off the table, at the very least.

You did not always choose what happened to you. But you chose whether to accept or to resist. Whether to appease or to act.

Why else had Zola succeeded, after all?

What would Nick have said about this?

A knock on the door. Pierce managed to switch off the projector before Alice came into the room. He felt himself flush, as though he had almost been caught red-handed, then the embarrassment quickly darkened to anger. Laura and the girls had been unusually tiring at dinner. Abby had whined about something or other, Alice had once again insisted on bringing up the issue of going to law school outside of D.C., even though Pierce had explicitly said the matter was closed, and Laura had decided to throw in her two cents, even though, as he’d pointed out, she had dropped out of college in her junior year. Now his daughter stood in his office, bold as brass, despite Pierce’s instructions before he’d gone into the study.

‘I did say I had work to do and didn’t want to be interrupted,’ he said. ‘Was that too hard to understand or…?’

‘No, Dad,’ she said. Pierce looked down at his desk. There, in plain sight of his daughter, sat the notes he had been taking and a manila folder with the corner of a photo poking out.

Alice didn’t look at them. ‘I just wanted to borrow some money for gas. I—’

‘Oh, of course, dear,’ Pierce said, mollified. ‘Downstairs drawer, take as much as you want.’

‘Thanks, Dad.’

Once Alice had closed the door behind her, he took another swig of scotch and loaded the next reel. There were things better than simple acquiescence, of course. Once people understood that you had their best interests at heart, they would do as asked. Not out of fear. Because they _wanted_ to. Zola never seemed to have considered that, but then Pierce doubted he had ever inspired a great deal of love in anyone.

 _Speak of the devil_. Zola appeared on the screen, a flaw in the canvas making him look like he had a stain on one ear. As he talked to the camera he puffed away at one of the cigarettes that would eventually kill him. Pierce was suddenly very aware that he was looking at a dead man, and wondered if the cancer had been lying in wait inside him even then.

‘… wonders at the subject’s physiological characteristics.’ Puff, ashes tapped into the ashtray. ‘I believe the key to the serum’s effectiveness and his survival is to be found in his particular genetics and perhaps even in the genes that may have predisposed his mother to her illness. It is very ironic, when one thinks about it. The subject has a living sister who is a resident of the United States. I suggest we keep eyes on this woman and her descendants and blood relatives.’ Puff, tap. ‘Perhaps blood samples can be collected when they undergo routine medical procedures and the like. One should remember _Herr_ Hershey and _Fräulein_ Chase’s discovery of…’

He droned on about genes and genetics for a good long while. Pierce moved to change the reel. He had no interest in Zola’s science, and all he needed to know about the asset’s bloodlines had been right there in the very beginning of the first file. An ill mother, a ten-years-younger sister, a dead father. Thirteen was such a difficult age…

Before he could stop the projector, the image jumped abruptly. Now the asset was on the screen, sitting in a chair resembling the kind used by dentists. There were fewer leads connected to his body and this time he had been allowed a gown. His hair was slightly longer than before, but that was hardly the difference you noticed when looking at him. _It_. Now you couldn’t mistake him for a person. His stillness was unnatural. His eyes were no longer glassy. Now they were unblinking, empty, as though something other had wandered into a human skin. He thought of those odd little English movies Alice liked, with eerie white-haired children in school uniforms.

It would chill a more impressionable man, he was sure. He’d always had both feet on the ground, though, even before he’d understood the truth about the world, so he merely finished his scotch and looked at the screen.

The asset turned his head in a clockwork motion towards the American flag hanging near the edge of the frame. ‘Yes,’ Zola said, ‘it is your own country which has—’

Pierce paused the projector. The asset’s face froze. He had been caught in a split-second of fear, or anger. His eyes were chips of ice, white and black. Pierce wound back a few seconds’ worth of film and restarted the projector. Zola showed up on the screen again. ‘… the results. When the algorit—’ The film jumped to the footage of the asset again.

This happened nowhere else on the tapes. They had been, unsurprisingly, assembled with scientific precision: titles, dates, locations. Each section had a brief intro outlining and justifying the upcoming procedure. He shut down the projector entirely and pulled the film from its reel. Zola’s face looked out at him from dozens of frames. The frames containing the asset were a few inches down on the celluloid, his face too small to make out.

The film had been cut, probably with a razor, a section excised, and then the two loose ends stuck together. The seam was still visible. Pierce leaned down to sniff it, as though that would provide a clue, but of course there was only that faint camphor smell of film reels.

The razor had sliced the word algorithm in half. His last mathematics class had been twenty-five years ago, but he couldn’t think of any other term that fit, and he was moderately familiar with the concept. Equations and the like.

So what algorithm could be important enough to erase?

***

In April he took Laura to Paris for their anniversary. The trip was a surprise, as was the diamond necklace he put around her neck on their hotel balcony. He had taken the care, with Linda’s help, to select one that would bring out her eyes and the small sapphires in the rings she wore on her right heart finger and which he had presented to her after the birth of each daughter. She was still stunning after twenty-one years, which excited him, and she was happy, which made him happy.

They made love rather more frequently than usual, paid outrageous prices for bad coffee and excellent pastries, and during their sight-seeing passed the street where the asset had assassinated an ambassador back in ’68.

***

By July he had visited the asset enough times that if he weren’t discreet and Laura were that sort of woman, she might begin suspecting he had a mistress. The thought was amusing enough to keep bobbing up every time he approached the rotunda building, but once inside the vault there was no room for nonsense. Every time, he watched as the asset was brought out of cryo, stayed with him until the shaking subsided and the asset’s eyes focused at least a little.

It was hard to believe, sometimes, that the asset was lightning-fast, capable of drifting in and out of anywhere like a gust of wind. Like this, damp and shivering, he didn’t look like a resting tiger. He looked like a toad among swans.

Appearances were so often deceiving.

‘Do you remember me?’ Pierce said, the fourth time they met.

The asset looked up from under his eyelashes, though not up enough to actually meet Pierce’s gaze. ‘Yes,’ he said.

His voice was hoarse with disuse, but was otherwise surprisingly ordinary, still with a trace of a Brooklyn accent. Pierce knew that he shouldn’t have expected anything else, but it was still as disconcerting as travelling to a distant city only to run into a familiar face.

‘Say my name.’

It was a request more than an order. Pierce always spoke to the asset with almost infinite patience.

‘Mister—Mister Pierce.’

‘Yes, very good.’ He had to keep a note of amusement off his voice; at first the asset had made it sound like _master_. ‘You’re doing well.’

A spark in the asset’s eyes, lightning-quick, then nothing.

Their seventh meeting. By this time the asset lasted long enough out of cryo to wear clothes and sit with him while Pierce talked. Now he looked down at the photos Pierce had spread out on a table. Stabbings. Head shots. Strangulations.

‘Do you remember these?’

The asset was silent.

Pierce edged a little closer to the asset, who no longer spooked when Pierce did that. _Do you remember the men from before?_ he’d kept asking. _The doctor_ , the asset had said eventually, voice and eyes hazy. _I’m not the doctor. And you don’t have to worry about any of those people anymore. Nobody’s going to hurt you. I won’t let it happen._ Pierce kept repeating it. It helped that every word was true.

The asset almost looked at him again, then shook his head. There had been a flicker of something there. Pierce wondered if the asset had the capacity to lie. Probably not. Zola would have mentioned it.

Then again, Zola had only seen the asset look at him blankly, or angrily, or fearfully. He had kept the asset tightly-leashed and tightly-caged, pumped full of who knew what drugs. He never got to find out what it was like to have the asset turn those ice-coloured eyes towards him and have them fill with trust.

But Pierce would.

‘You did these things,’ Pierce said. ‘You don’t remember doing them?’

‘No,’ the asset said with a shake of his head. ‘Bad. These are bad things.’

It was the most words Pierce had ever heard him say.

‘Yes, they were bad things.’ Pierce spread out the photos on the table, arranged them so that the colours almost made a pattern, a message spelled out in blood splatters and police tape. Some of the bodies had their eyes closed, their hands folded over their waists. The asset might not remember, but he had never hesitated. Pierce glanced at the photos of the asset’s first bloody consummation. Even though the pictures were black and white, Pierce could tell that after the first kill in his new life, the asset had been careful to step around the blood, so he wouldn’t track it on his boots.

‘The world is full of people who do these bad things,’ Pierce went on. ‘Because they’re bad people. Because they like it. Venal men doing venal deeds.’ He wondered if the asset understood that word. ‘And the thought of them getting away with it just makes me sick. But you, you’re different. You have a purpose.

‘You didn’t do these things because you enjoyed them, did you? You did them because you had to. Because sometimes, to build a cleaner world, you have to get your hands in the muck. I understand. I’ve sent other soldiers to war. Not for the sake of war, but for the sake of peace.’ Pierce picked up the photos, shuffled them together. ‘So I do understand. Even if not everyone does. The world should get what it needs, not what it thinks it wants. And you’ve had your part to play, just like I’ve had mine. Even if some people would rather not think about it. Even if some people find it ugly or scary.’ He paused. When he spoke again his tone was hesitant. ‘You don’t… mind that, do you?’

The asset’s gaze bounced from Pierce to the walls and the tip of his tongue poked out between his lips, then retreated back into his mouth.

‘No, of course not.’ Pierce sounded relieved. ‘You understand how it works. You’ve got your mission.’

‘Mission,’ the asset repeated.

On their tenth meeting, Pierce asked him if he would like to go outside. The asset healed with preternatural speed, and the asset’s mind was mending, he knew, more and more of the damage from that final wipe being undone. By now his gaze was almost as vivid as a normal person’s.

‘Outside. Yes, I wanna go outside.’

Pierce had expected an affirmative answer and he had brought some street clothes for him to wear. The asset put them on efficiently and in silence, and if anything about the jeans or the running shoes was unfamiliar, he gave no sign of it. It all fit, of course; Pierce always took excellent care of his people.

The bank was dark and deserted when they crossed the marble hall. ‘Outside,’ the asset said again. It was almost too soft to hear, but Pierce had been keeping a mental tally of the asset’s ever diminishing verbal tics.

July had been unseasonably warm and even at night the city smelled of the Potomac. Pierce walked them down to Garfield Park. All the while the asset said nothing, busy looking at headlights, street lamps, the Capitol dome glowing white in the distance.

‘You can run,’ Pierce said when they reached the park. It was late enough that there weren’t many prying eyes around.

Not that he was worried about what they might do to the asset.

The asset frowned, said nothing. His hands remained stuck in his pockets, his shoulders scrunched up.

‘If you want,’ Pierce added, and the asset took off as soon as he finished the sentence. He darted so fast into the trees and grass that Pierce lost track of him in seconds. He had to struggle to make out the asset’s shape on the other side of the park, slicing through the night at an impossible speed. He glanced at his watch just as the asset banked the corner and raced back to the spot on the pavement where Pierce was waiting.

 _My god_. Pierce couldn’t help it. The perimeter around the park was maybe half a mile long, and the asset had run it in less than a minute. Now the asset was almost at his side again and Pierce felt the barest trickle of apprehension. What must it be like, to have that well-oiled machine bearing down on you…

The asset ran past him.

‘Stop,’ Pierce said, but the asset was already down the street, too far away to hear him.

The asset raced onto the asphalt, dodged a car that honked at him, cut across a grass verge, and vanished out of sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think a lot of things about Bucky’s reactions to Pierce will become clearer once you take a look at these photos showing what Robert Redford (and, by implication, Pierce in the MCU) looked like around the time this is set: <http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lleye352x91qbqu8lo1_400.jpg> (1976); <http://www.marchofdimes.com/glue/images/Main_celeb_2.png> (1979); <http://cineplex.media.baselineresearch.com/images/80904/80904_full.jpg> (1980). The last one is from the set of _Brubaker_ , which, obvious lulz aside, is about a prison warden trying to create the ideal prison, making this some kind of serpent-eating-its-own-tail of meta comedy. But wait, it gets better! During the 70s and 80s Marvel actually based Steve Rogers’ appearance in the comics on Robert Redford. Behold: [Exhibit A](http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/uploads/RayDyas/2007-08-03_182437_Steve_Rogers.jpg) and [Exhibit B](http://readinggruenwaldcaps.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/ca309_09b.jpg). Is there anything I could add at this point? (No, but since we’re talking about Robert Redford, I’ll make a terrible _The Assassin Whisperer_ joke.) Drew and Raymond are comics shout-outs/Mythology Gags. Bucky’s father used to be called George Madison Barnes in the comics and guidebooks etc until Brubaker forgot this and changed it to James Buchanan Barnes Sr. However, MCU!Bucky is never listed as a Jr in official documents, so clearly Madison is the correct Dead President. The Export-Import National Bank is made up—it’s basically an Expy of the RL Export-Import Bank of the United States, which I assume does not keep any frozen super-assassins in their vault. I mean, at a guess. They probably don’t. Disseminated sclerosis is an older name for multiple sclerosis. Oh, and making Bucky’s mother’s maiden name be Hayes is probably the nerdiest, most obscure joke (well, double joke—or triple, even, if you also see it as a reference to Molly Hayes) I will ever make. If you get it, give yourself a Golden Dork award. :D You’ve earned it, my friend. You’ve earned it.


	17. 1980

**3.**

**1980**

_Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck._

Pierce didn’t swear often. He saved it for situations like this one.

He took a deep breath. He might never have been in a war—not a declared one, at least—but he had served, and his time as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. had taught him well. Panic was defeat. He walked down the street at a leisurely pace, eyes peeled. When he reached the corner, he hesitated. A truck sped past. North or South?

His fingers brushed the comm link in his pocket. He had been told the signal it emitted had a limited range, but it should be enough. One press of the button and he could have agents going over a three mile radius with a fine-toothed comb.

He did not want that. He looked at his watch. Half an hour. He would give himself half an hour to retrieve the asset on his own.

He always did do his best work under pressure, to tight deadlines.

He decided on South, towards the looming shape of the Southwest freeway. The asset might not be functioning at his full capacity yet, but his well-honed instincts likely remained. He might want to take cover under the overpasses, be drawn to the river as an easy navigation aid.

When he reached Virginia Avenue he saw he had been right as always, just not about the hiding part. The asset stood by a chain-link fence, staring at the haze of headlights in the freeway above. He was half-hidden by a scraggly city shrub, but Pierce recognised him, would have recognised him in a crowd, anywhere.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Pierce said once he got close enough to touch the asset. His heart had caught up with what’d just happened and hammered away at his ribcage. Pierce let it.

The asset turned to face him. He had felt Pierce coming, of course—he could probably _smell_ him—but he had not even tried to run away. He held Pierce’s gaze for a moment, then lowered his eyes, the dark circles underneath them visible even in the dim light.

Pierce’s hand left the pocket containing the comm link. No, it wouldn’t be necessary.

‘Why did you run away from me?’

The asset said nothing and just stood with his eyes still downcast, his body tense. Pierce thought of a hedgehog curled up into a spiky ball.

‘You don’t like how I treat you?’ The asset was roughly the same height as Pierce and built more powerfully, but at the moment he was trying to shrink into nothingness. Pierce edged a little closer, until he could practically feel the heat radiating from the asset’s body, or the air leaving his lungs. ‘Did I hurt you? Lie to you? Come on. Answer me.’

The asset stood still for a few seconds, then shook his head.

Pierce sighed, took a step back, and glanced around. There was a shape under the overpass, huddled by one of the graffitied pillars. Pierce couldn’t tell if it was a person or a pile of trash. One day soon it would be neither. When it was all fixed. ‘You know, you’re not a prisoner. This is how you want to behave, that’s fine by me. Does it make me happy? No. But go ahead. Turn your back on what you are, on what you can do. Go live in the streets or under the overpass. Whatever it is you want.’ He paused, crossed his arms. The asset said nothing, did nothing. ‘Well? What are you waiting for?’

The only sound was the rumble of traffic. Pierce shook his head again, this time with a mix of disappointment and contempt. ‘Guess you can’t even manage that.’ He turned around and began walking back towards the bank.

After a few moments he heard the asset’s footfalls catching up behind him.

Pierce said nothing during the walk back, never turned around, never acknowledged the asset in any way. Only when they were inside the building, under the skylight, did he speak again.

‘I’m not going to lie and say I’m not angry,’ he said. ‘And yes, I should punish you. For being disobedient, lazy, and a coward. I think you know that’s exactly what you deserve, don’t you?’

The asset whispered something.

‘What was that?’ Pierce said, and stepped closer to the asset, until their clothes were brushing.

The asset shrank and turned his face away. ‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered.

‘Well, it’s a little too late for that, isn’t it?’ Pierce drew back. When he spoke again his tone was even more patient than usual, even though his anger had yet to subside completely and his heart was still beating a little faster than normal. ‘Do you know there are people keeping an eye on what we’re doing? I can’t protect you from them forever. I’m trying, but… I can’t help if you won’t let me. I can’t hold up my end of the deal if you won’t hold up yours. Do you understand?’

The asset nodded.

‘I see. You want to put all this behind us, don’t you?’

Nod.

‘All right. We can start fresh. We won’t even think of it again.’

He led the asset back into the vault, into the room where he was usually prepped for cryo. Dr Aldridge’s team was on duty tonight. The asset stripped down to his underwear and waited, motionless as always but anxiety flickering in his eyes.

‘Wipe him,’ Pierce said. The scientists and technicians went into their practiced motions, readying the chair, securing the asset in place.

Cogs in a well-oiled machine. If only things could always be so.

A tech wheeled in a tray laden with syringes and drip bags.

‘No. No anaesthesia,’ Pierce said.

Another tech stopped halfway through attaching the leads to the asset’s head.

Dr Aldridge cleared his throat. ‘Mr Pierce, the treatment is not as effective if the subject is conscious. The brain waves—’

‘I think I was pretty clear.’ He looked at the asset, whose eyes widened a fraction but who remained still. _Look at you_ , Pierce wanted to tell him. _Meek as a little lamb now, aren’t you?_

The procedure continued. Awake or asleep, there wasn’t much difference, other than the asset having to take the rubber mouthguard himself. Pierce looked on. The asset’s eyes were wide, but he hesitated only for a moment before he opened his mouth without much fuss.

Dr Aldridge’s hand hovered above the machine’s control panel. Pierce wondered if he was going to have to flip the goddamn switches himself.

He looked back at the asset. ‘Go ahead, doctor. He knows what he did.’

The machine hummed to life.

Pierce made himself stay and watch, no matter how unpleasant he found it.

***

Once it was all over, Pierce stayed by the asset’s side and gently patted away the sweat off his body with a damp towel. The team removed leads, checked vitals, prepared both him and the equipment for cryo. The asset kept shuddering, his eyes utterly unfocused. Pierce wondered if he was still in pain. It should have faded by now. Well, the cryo would take care of that, but Pierce made a note to bring it up with the team afterwards. He didn’t want the asset to suffer unnecessarily, after all.

‘There,’ he said to the asset as he wiped the sweat off his flesh arm. ‘It’s all over. All over and done with. You feel better now.’ The asset didn’t answer. He just kept trembling.

Pierce stopped, nudged the asset’s chin towards him with the towel. ‘Do you remember me?’

The asset’s gaze drifted past him, but still he nodded, even if it did look like a twitch.

‘Good. Do you remember what you did wrong tonight?’

The asset stilled. His eyes drifted towards Pierce, away again.

‘Me neither,’ Pierce said, which prompted the asset to shake his head. ‘Never happened, gone, dead and buried. We’re square again, all right?’

He reached up with the towel to wipe the asset’s tears away.

***

At the end of August, for their fifteenth meeting, Pierce arranged a surprise for the asset. After being defrosted, assessed, and dressed, the asset followed him, a little warily, into the room at the bank where Pierce had ordered the table to be set and readied. The staff had done an excellent job: starched white tablecloth, china and silverware gleaming, even a bottle of wine on ice and another in a cooler. Pierce examined them both. A decent Italian Pinot Grigio and a Bordeaux Merlot of surprisingly excellent vintage.

The asset stared from the doorway and Pierce had to suppress a bout of laughter at the thought of taking him, in body armour and fully armed, to the Tabard Inn or the Senate dining room. Now there would be a sight to behold, a bunch of assholes in business suits fleeing like gazelles.

Maybe one day.

‘I know you don’t eat as often as—well, I guess not often,’ Pierce said as he began to unpack the meal he’d brought from the Occidental Grill. ‘I thought you’d appreciate a change up from field rations.’

Did the asset even remember the last time he’d been in the field? Pierce very much doubted it. Still, the correct way to feed himself had probably been conditioned into him with Zola’s sci-fi tapes. Pierce placed a few slices of fillet mignon on the asset’s plate. The meat was rare enough for the juices to be pink.

‘Come on, sit down,’ Pierce said. ‘You want an appetiser? Their crab cakes are amazing.’

The asset didn’t answer. He just sat on the assigned chair, seemingly at ease—Pierce had paid close attention to the asset’s physical evolution as much as to his mental one—but in reality ready to spring into action at the smallest sign of danger, at the sight of a threat.

Or upon an order.

‘We actually have a mission to discuss,’ Pierce said as he uncorked the white wine and poured himself a glass. The asset looked at the bottle. ‘No, none for you, it’s not good for your head. You’ll have some water.’

Pierce had made his way through a crab cake and half a glass of wine before he spoke again. Meanwhile the asset had done nothing, said nothing. Once in a while he stared at the food on his plate. It had been six months since they’d first met and Pierce had turned forty-four, but the asset was still in his twenties. The asset was always in his twenties.

He had begun to wonder if some of Zola’s cruelties had been done out of boredom.

‘It’s a retrieval mission. Some people are being held in a location only you can reach and we want them back alive. I’ll give you the full picture.’ He stood up to help himself to the main course. ‘The targets to be acquired are scattered throughout a number of secure locations. Each location is heavily guarded. You cannot be seen under any circumstances. Any witnesses are going to be hostile, and they’re to be eliminated on sight. There will be a small team of operatives to actually take the targets to their transports. You will not interact with this team unless it is strictly necessary. And you must not under any circumstances let yourself be captured alive. Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ the asset said, blank as ever.

‘Good,’ Pierce said, and explained the mission a little further. A much simplified version of things, of course, but the asset reacted well to these childish notions of good guys and bad guys, much like he did to discipline and punishment. ‘Come on, eat your food. You don’t want it to go cold.’

The asset picked up his fork and tentatively ate a new potato, then grabbed the knife and sliced a sliver of fillet mignon with an awkward motion—Pierce wondered if he was far more used to doing it to human flesh, with a combat knife—before placing it in his mouth.

He began to choke almost instantly. Pierce got up, but by the time he made it across the table, it was all over. The asset was on all fours on the floor, gasping but breathing, his chair overturned.

‘Come on. Come on.’ Pierce made him sit up. The asset flinched. ‘What, I’m going to punish you for choking? Here, drink some water. _Slowly_.’

The asset still managed to dribble some of it down his chin. Pierce stood up. ‘I should have realised. I should have realised you’d find a way to mess this up.’

There was no answer. He hadn’t expected one. The asset’s head hung down, his hands on the rug. Pierce dragged a chair in front of the asset and sat down, then placed his hands on the asset’s shoulders.

‘Look at me. _Look at me_.’ The asset obeyed. ‘I’m worried, you know. Maybe I was a bit… abrupt. I have confidence in you and your work, but you have to understand that the people I report to don’t. They don’t think you can carry out this mission. They want to get rid of you. And if this mission fails, if you’re not ready, that’s what will happen. You’ll be gone. And then I’ll be gone too, probably. Is that what you want to happen?’

‘No. I—retrieval mission. All targets to be acquired.’

‘We’ll see, won’t we?’ Pierce said, and stood up. He picked a linen napkin off the table. ‘You know, I got to say I’d rather have a hot dog at Yankee Stadium, if I’m being honest.’

Something flickered in the asset’s expression but it was gone in an instant. _Good_. Pierce tossed the napkin at the asset. ‘Clean yourself up and come downstairs.’

***

‘So how are things going with our frosty friend? Three more months and we’ll have ourselves a spare freezer.’

Pierce had just come from a National Security Council meeting and he was still a little light-headed. Harrison was in shirt-sleeves. He always worked up a sweat after a session tormenting baby House members.

‘The clock only started ticking in March.’ Harrison snorted derisively at that. Pierce went on. ‘Wheels are going up for his first mission at the end of the month.’

‘Abroad?’ Harrison poured himself a gin-and-tonic. His office’s liquor cabinet was always well stocked. ‘Maybe you should have him knock over a few 7-11s first, work his way back to the big leagues. So what’s the plan?’

Pierce told him.

Harrison nearly choked on his drink. ‘Jesus, Al, are you fucking insane?’

‘I’ve just come from the NSC meeting setting up the official operation. The asset will be working under their cover, of course.’

Harrison drained the rest of the gin-and-tonic. ‘So I guess being a nut is catching. This isn’t personal for you, is it, Al?’ Drink or not, his gaze was as sharp as ever.

Pierce was not a man who got angry often. Right now he felt molten lava splash his insides. ‘Leave her out of this, Harry.’

‘I meant staying on at the DoS. Who knows, maybe make it to Secretary of State. How are your kids, by the way?’

‘They’re all fine.’ He sounded smooth as always but he was only a fraction mollified. If that. ‘Alice is doing well at the SFS. Wants to go to law school after that. Abby is just starting fifth grade. Horse-mad.’

‘Good. Send my regards to your family. You want to be President, Al?’

‘Never crossed my mind.’ That wasn’t entirely truthful—he had wondered, of course—but it wasn’t entirely a lie, either. He was an ambitious man, but he’d never understood power for power’s sake. Power was a tool, like any other. All that mattered was what you did with it.

‘You could be, you know. Young, well-liked, solid background, movie-star good looks… Heck, if by some fucking miracle this little Middle Eastern adventure doesn’t blow up in your face, you’re halfway there.’

‘I don’t want to be President.’ He held Harrison’s gaze until the other man looked away. Did Hydra want a President, or perhaps have one already? It sounded like too much effort for too little reward. Who wanted to be the puppet when you could pull the strings? ‘And the asset is ready. He will do it. And he will pull it off. No miracles required.’

‘Except the miracle of better living through chemistry, I guess.’ Harrison leaned back in his chair, opened his mouth, closed it again. A little of the tension in the room ebbed away. Pierce felt his shoulders relax. He hadn’t realised he’d been tensing them. ‘You know I’ll have to speak to the Baron.’

‘I know.’

‘And what will happen if this goes belly up. Not just to the asset, I mean.’

Pierce looked up at the wall above Harrison’s head, then back to the senator. ‘If this goes belly up the asset will be the least of our worries because he will have put a bullet in his head, swallowed some cyanide, or flipped his kill switch. We’re all grown-ups here, Harry.’

‘Yeah? Never mind the kill switch. With the stuff you want him to do, you should just open him up and shove in some C4.’

***

No C4 was necessary.

The press conferences lasted all day, the meetings and the television coverage lasted well into the night. The phone calls kept coming, the news tickers spat out yards of paper. Pierce couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt like this. His first mission with S.H.I.E.L.D., he thought, taking out the would-be bomber at Idlewild Airport. The air bubbled. He felt too big for his skin, and like he’d be able to fly through sheer force of will. He lost count of how many times he was patted on the back. Someone spilled champagne on the Oval Office floor.

‘Yeah, I just bet the tensions will be escalating, asshole,’ Harrison yelled at a TV screen. Everybody in the room—senators, interns, congresspeople, typists, Secret Service—was watching, jumbled together regardless of rank or affiliation. ‘Enjoy your own land war in Asia. Hear that’s going around.’ That got a big laugh.

‘Deputy Secretary Pierce, man of the hour!’ Harrison said. The room burst into applause.

‘No, don’t applaud me,’ he said, once he could make himself heard. ‘Don’t applaud the President, either, that’ll just embarrass him.’ More laughter. ‘The credit goes to all of you. And most of all to our men on the ground.’

Harrison stepped in for some back-slapping.

‘ _Hail Hydra_ ,’ Harrison whispered into his ear.

‘ _Hail Hydra_.’

It sounded less silly now.

It was only in the small hours that he managed to fit in a quick trip to the vault. By then he had fielded two calls from Director Carter and three from Nick, the first one while he was still at Dulles, and had instructed Linda to phone his wife and let her know he wasn’t sure when he’d be home. There were no phones in the vault, and the bank was shadowy and quiet. No reporters, no camera flashes. The glory was still with him, but he felt his mind settle and cool down. Even the air smelled somber.

Above him the city spun on, like it always had, ignorant of the secrets inside it.

The asset was in his chair, being examined after his mission. His hair was matted, his face still streaked with grime and dried blood. He stared straight ahead, neither helping nor hindering, his gaze dreadfully sharp. He was still wearing some of his body armour, and Pierce thought that this was what the dead had seen during their final moments on earth. This thing, masked, eyes hidden, darting swift and terrible towards them like a great white shark. One of the engineers proceeded to open the metal arm’s casing, exposing wires and mechanical parts that made crackling noises when he touched them. The star was a splash of scarlet on the asset’s shoulder, and Pierce hoped fervently someone had caught a glimpse of it and lived long enough to birth rumours about it.

‘How is the asset?’ Pierce asked. ‘Any damage?’

‘Nothing substantial,’ the team leader said. Lee, Pierce recalled. On Tuesdays, it was Dr Lee. ‘There was a stab injury, but it was mostly healed by retrieval time. Some minor injuries beyond that. The arm is fully functional.’

‘Good. Once you’re done, knock him out, wipe him, and stick him back on ice.’ Pierce turned to the asset, who had said nothing all the while. ‘Mission report.’

It had been a while since the asset had done this, and when he got the words out, they sounded rusty. ‘Mission successful. All targets acquired and recovered. Threats eliminated. Witnesses eliminated. I—’ He faltered. His eyes drifted away from Pierce, clouded with confusion.

‘It’s all right. Hey. Look at me. It’s all right.’ Pierce leaned down so their eyes would be level. ‘That’s all I needed to hear. You did well. You saved lives.’

The asset blinked. ‘Saved. I saved them.’

‘Yes. Yes you did. And one day the world will know what you did for it, and will be thankful. When it’s all over.’ He would have patted the asset’s shoulder, but even though there would be a thorough washing before he was put back into cryo, right now he still stank of sweat and grime. ‘I am very proud of you.’

Pierce straightened up. The asset’s flesh hand reached out, then fell back on the chair.

‘Don’t worry,’ Pierce said. ‘I’ll stay with you until you’re asleep again.’

He did stay for a while.

***

When he made it back to his office, he found a piece of paper on his desk, undated, unsigned. He picked up the paper, examined it. The paper stock was heavy and expensive, the words written in a flowing hand with a fountain pen. Other than that, there were no further clues.

_Congratulations on your success, Deputy Secretary Pierce. You have picked on an interesting thread. Unfortunately so far it has only led to the personal files of our late friend and other dead ends. Did you know that Professor Weiss used his old serial number as his access code? What a remarkable thing to do, wouldn’t you say?_

All of a sudden he felt the weight of a gaze on his back. He spun around, but there was nothing at the window, only the night and the city’s lights, the winking eye of a plane drifting across the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky’s first mission for Pierce is the fictional AU version of a real event (there are actually other instances of this in the fic). Since the outcome and obviously Bucky’s involvement are made up and this is a recent event, I’ve disguised it a fair bit, but there should still be enough clues for anyone who wants to work it out (i.e., anyone who is as sad as I am ;)). Also, another bit of tl;dr meta, feel free to skip: I confess to being always surprised when I come across the idea that MCU!Bucky’s conditioning was all science fiction/applied phlebotinum, because, um, it’s really not? (I’m talking purely about canon here, because if fanfic isn’t for stories about Pierce controlling Bucky with psionic implants so he can go take down the Enterprise in Planet Unicorn, I don’t know what it’s for! :D) I mean, yeah, obviously the bionic arm is pure sf as is a lot of other stuff, and as you can tell from this fic, I think Zola’s approach involved all kinds of weird drugs and _Clockwork Orange_ -style machines etc. But Pierce in CA:TWS? Yeah, there are all kinds of contraptions in the bank vault scene, but if it were about that, then Pierce wouldn’t need to show up, the scientists would just flip the right switches and be done with it. Instead, the scientists take it as a given that Pierce has to come in to regulate the Winter Soldier’s emotional state. The machines are just window dressing, what matters is what Pierce says and does to Bucky, and every second of their interactions, including the ones at Pierce’s house, frankly comes across as though Pierce read Lundy Bancroft’s _Why Does He Do That?_ with a highlighter because he mistook it for a life-coaching book. And of course in my personal interpretation, for all that he’s about ~science~, Zola is actually no slouch himself at abuse, manipulation, and gaslighting, see, among many other examples, all the bits in Part I in which Zola tells Bucky how much he is ~predisposed~ to become the Winter Soldier, which is just a (slightly) more sophisticated way of telling him he was totally asking for it, and then Zola’s actual selection process in the previous chapter. I hope Pierce and Zola have kept their amateur status, because they’ll be killing it in the Messing With People’s Heads Olympics.


	18. 1982

**4.**

**1982**

Pierce spent over a year, all told, going over every single one of Zola’s papers he could get his hands on, but there was no trace of the elusive algorithm, not even in the works about zebrafish.

***

They were on their fourth mission by the time the first fly landed on the ointment.

As soon as Pierce set foot in the vault, the team leader—Dr Atwater, Friday team—told him that they’d had some hiccups during the thawing process and the asset was agitated and mildly unstable, so at least Pierce knew to expect something, going in.

He did not expect the asset to make a fuss whenever someone touched him, or to fail to obey when Pierce commanded him to look at him.

‘This may be a calibration problem,’ Dr Atwater said. ‘We ran the conditioning before you arrived and…’

‘No,’ Pierce said. The chemical smells in the room, which until now had always been faint enough not to bother him, were giving him the start of a headache. ‘It’s not a calibration problem. Bring me the microfilm pictures.’

The asset sat in his chair, looking like a bull about to bolt out of its stall. His hands clenched the armrests, the metal one hard enough to leave dents. The mechanical arm kept making faint clicking and whirring noises. Pierce made a mental note to ask the team about it later.

It wasn’t a calibration problem. It was a discipline problem. It was an order problem. People, ordinary people, people who worked in high-rise offices or manned street stalls, who ate greasy food or overcooked rice, who complained about their mothers-in-law, craved safety. They wanted to know that tomorrow was coming and what it would bring. They wanted to know, without having to think about it, that they were a part of something bigger. They wanted to know exactly where they stood and what the rules were, and that they could rely on them.

And then there was this.

Pierce dragged over a chair so he could sit in front of the asset, eye to eye. ‘Look at me when I tell you to,’ he said. He didn’t raise his voice, but his tone was unyielding enough that the asset obeyed almost immediately.

He couldn’t help but feel a bitter spoonful of disappointment. The asset was supposed to be perfect. A mechanism of polished steel, free from all the grit and debris that made people kick walls, join mobs, throw bricks.

‘I have a mission for you,’ Pierce said, and explained what he expected of the asset, the target, the location, the details of the killing. The asset seemed a little less agitated as Pierce spoke, but even so Pierce could tell he was unfocused, always about to fidget. His body seemed to crackle like a severed live wire. It wasn’t hard to picture him getting up from his chair and methodically slaughtering everyone in the room. It wasn’t hard at all. ‘Do you understand?’

The asset shook his head. His hands released the chair and twitched, then the metal hand grabbed the armrest again with a soft crunch. When he spoke, though, his voice was barely audible. ‘Can’t—I can’t.’

‘You can’t,’ Pierce repeated, his tone not unkind. The tech wheeled in the microfilm reels and loaded them into the reader under one of the screens. The asset’s gaze drifted leftward as the tech brought the reader closer. Pierce raised his voice a fraction. ‘Don’t look at him. Look at me.’

The asset’s head twitched once, then he looked back at Pierce.

‘Why can’t you?’

The asset didn’t reply. His skin was taut over bunched muscles, shiny with the fluids from his most recent rebirth.

 _God, what next?_ Was Pierce going to have to ask the asset about his opinions on the Falklands? Perhaps his keen insights into the situation in Lebanon?

‘Why don’t you want to carry out your mission?’

The asset glanced down at his hands, still curled on the chair’s arms, then his eyes turned upwards. For a split-second, Pierce was sure he saw rage burn on his face. Then his expression turned pleading, eyes wide, mouth droopy. When he spoke, though, his tone was flat. ‘Is it wrong.’

A question? A statement? Pierce couldn’t tell.

‘Ah. Wrong.’ Pierce fiddled with the microfilm reader’s controls. Images darted across the screen, too fast to make out. Finally he settled on one. It drifted out of focus, then sharpened again as he adjusted it. It was black and white, but that suited it. The hollow-points’ exit wounds looked like tar pits, ringed by grey-white flecks of bone.

‘Look at it. _Look at it_. That was you.’ Flicker. Another image, an open mouth, a coil of viscera half-spilling out of a slit abdomen. ‘That was you.’ Flicker. Flicker. Flicker. ‘That was you. That was you.’

‘Is this enough?’ Pierce said, finally. The asset hadn’t dared to look away, but his eyes were pleading again. Pierce pictured them damp with tears, but instead of the knot of revulsion he was expecting, he felt only curiosity. Could the asset cry, he wondered. Would he ever?

‘You understand now? Do you see what you are? What you do?’ He turned away from the screen but didn’t bother turning it off. The image still displayed on it was in colour. It cast a faint red tinge on the clammy skin on the asset’s chest and throat. ‘You want to pretend this isn’t you?’

The asset said nothing.

‘Do you even know how good you are at your work?’ He leaned closer to the asset, so that their faces were only two handspans apart. The warming tank smell still clung to the asset along with the sting of disinfectant. There were bruises from injections on his right arm, already fading. ‘You are… unique. What you do, nobody else can. What you’re willing to do, nobody else is. And that is why I need you. That is why the world needs you. To do the things no one else is capable of. So that the world can finally have the freedom it needs.’

The asset looked him in the eye, his expression sullen, defiant, even. ‘I ca—’

A few moments later Pierce stood up and looked at his hand. He couldn’t stop himself from shaking a little, for all his self-control.

He was not a man who yelled. He was certainly not a man who hit. He had never had to spank the girls to discipline them, and he had nothing but contempt for those pathetic men—for lack of a better word—who beat their wives.

This was something else entirely.

The asset looked subdued now, even a little contrite, head hanging down, a bead of blood on the cleft of his chin. Anger swelled inside Pierce. Had he asked for anything more than for things to stay as they’d always been, the two of them working as a perfect team, a well-oiled machine, ticking away? Had he demanded anything else? He didn’t hurt for the sake of hurting like Zola had. He did only what was necessary. Less than that, even. And in return the asset had decided to be downright _provocative_ , stubborn and petulant like someone who lazily ignored clear instructions and then got mad at the idea of owning up to the mistake. Even Pierce’s patience had its limits.

His knuckles throbbed a little. He was sure he’d hurt his own hand more than he’d hurt the asset, but at least it had been successful correction. All the stubbornness seemed to have trickled out. He had craved it, Pierce understood. A sharp reminder of where he stood and what he was. The air had been cleared and they could carry on.

‘Do you want to be put back on ice?’ Pierce said. His heart had sped up, but his voice was as calm as ever.

The asset’s lips parted but no sound came out. His eyes remained focused on the floor. ‘I asked you a question,’ Pierce said.

‘No,’ the asset whispered.

‘Maybe this was all a mistake. Taking you out of the ice, letting you go on assignments. Maybe I should have let you stay asleep. You even ran away from me once.’ The asset raised his head at that, without meeting Pierce’s eyes, then lowered his head again. ‘I should just wipe you one last time. That’s exactly what something like you deserves. Then you won’t have to be asked to do your work again. That’ll be the best way.’

The asset ran the tip of his tongue across his lips. ‘The mission.’

‘Speak up,’ Pierce said, and crossed his arms over his chest. He didn’t want the asset to think he was any less angry at him.

‘The mission.’ A twitch and whirr of his metal arm. When he spoke again his tone was even softer, almost too quiet to hear. ‘I have my mission.’

‘Yes you do,’ Pierce said. ‘That’s what you want,’ he added, and sat down again for the briefing. He glanced at the rest of the team, but they were all busy with their instruments and readings. If anyone had anything to say, they didn’t say it. They didn’t even meet his eyes.

Before he went home, he stopped at the executive bathroom.

One day, Pierce thought as he washed the blood off his knuckles and waited for his expression to regain its composure, the scholars of the future would discuss the end of history. They would tell their incredulous students that there had been a time when people hadn’t been safe, sheltered, protected. Some of those people had talked about freedom, but there were all kinds of freedom, weren’t there? Back them, those people, those few, had freedom to. These days, the teachers would say, we all had freedom from. Think about which kind should be valued more highly.

He watched the pink water swirl down the drain, and hoped the skin on his fingers wouldn’t bruise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The distinction between freedom to and freedom from… appears in lots of places, but the bit in this chapter was specifically inspired by similar statements made by one of the Aunts in Margaret Atwood’s _The Handmaid’s Tale_. Also, remember how Pierce wiped Bucky’s tears away in Chapter 3? And now he’s wondering if Bucky is even capable of crying? Well, that strikes me as a good segue to point out that if Zola’s lies and distortions were a book of Wallies, Pierce’s are a planet of Wallies.


	19. 1984

**5.**

**1984**

It was Pierce’s idea to host the retirement dinner at the Smithsonian, but it was soon-to-be-former-Director Carter who decided to have it in tandem with the opening of the new, expanded Captain America exhibit. Soon they would all adjourn to S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ for the rest of the event, but for now an incredible collection of insiders’ insiders and their spouses flitted, in tuxedos, dripping pearls and diamonds, from the exhibit’s red, white, and blue to the dining tables set up in the executive board room. If Pierce let the asset loose here, he’d cripple the entire U.S. intelligence community. He had to drain half his champagne flute to stop himself from laughing out loud at the thought.

Of course, the asset would have been instructed to skip the Hydra members dotting the gathering.

‘I believe you’re the one I have to thank for this, Agent—pardon, I meant Councilman Pierce,’ Carter said. Her voice was as crisp as ever, but her eyes were a little shiny. Pierce knew he was supposed to think it was the memories, but it was probably the champagne. ‘Don’t tell the rest of the Council, but I think I’ll always have trouble thinking of you as anything other than young Alexander Pierce from Avery’s team. Forgive age its foibles when I call you Agent.’

‘I shouldn’t take the credit. And I think I’ll always think of you as the Director,’ he said with a broad smile, then turned to Soon-to-be-Director Fury. ‘Sorry, Nick.’

‘You’re forgiven,’ Nick said, even though he didn’t sound like anyone was forgiven at all.

Moments later, after the pastry chef’s excellent work had mostly been demolished and the board room smelled of cigarette smoke, Nick materialised at Pierce’s side as he was herding Laura towards the Starks.

‘We need to talk about Beirut.’

Laura smiled politely. ‘I thought you said there would be no shop talk tonight, Alexander.’

‘Come on, Nick.’ He patted Nick’s shoulder, which didn’t stop the other man from looking like he’d much rather be doing something less painful, like dealing with a terrorist cell. ‘It’s a party. Mingle.’

They would have time to talk about the asset’s handiwork soon enough, Pierce thought as he wound his way to Carter, pausing here and there for chatter and handshakes. She was where he’d expected her to be: standing in front of the new mural, the weak light making her look small and sunken and filling the wall with dark blues and greys.

She turned to look at him. They were alone here, the party only a rumble of voices. He glanced over his shoulder to see if he could spot Laura’s blue dress or the dark sweep of her hair, but she was lost in the crowd.

‘I do apologise,’ Carter said. Her head turned back to the mural, to the portraits painted larger than life. ‘I’m being a poor guest of honour.’

Pierce edged closer to her. ‘No, I understand. You actually knew him.’ His gaze slid right past the idiot in stars and stripes and onto the asset’s portrait. Well, not the asset, not yet. Just Barnes. Just another soldier who hadn’t come home. The painted face looked similar to the real thing—Barnes had died in his twenties and that was what the asset looked like, always in his twenties—but at the same time the two were as different as a caterpillar and a butterfly. It was like looking at some strange optical illusion.

‘I wish we could have something more,’ Carter said. Her voice caught a little. She smoothed it over. ‘He deserved better. Well, a life. He should have had a life.’ She shook her head.

‘And instead he got the legend. You know, my father told me stories, though I don’t think he ever met him. I did read the comics when I was a kid…’ He trailed off, waited a few seconds before he spoke again. ‘I’m sorry. He was someone you knew and who didn’t get to come back.’

She let out a tiny chuckle, almost a hiccup, or a sigh. ‘It’s quite all right. It was a long time ago, even for me.’ The look she gave him was one he was very familiar with, wrinkles or not. It was the one where you could never be sure if she was simply being polite or spending a few seconds to take you all in, from top to bottom, and ferret things away for the maze of files in her head.

Working with Nick was going to be so much easier. You could always trust a mistrustful man, especially one who had also learned the hard way how the world worked.

Nick had just done so earlier than him, that was all.

‘And he wasn’t a legend back then,’ she went on. ‘He just thought of himself as a man trying to do the right thing, and he’d have something amusing and rather biting to say about all this if he ever saw it. He was never as saintly as people suppose.’ She glanced around at the display cases, ghostly in the after-hours light. ‘It’d never occur to him that it’s the very least we can do. All he wanted before he—before he put the _Valkyrie_ in the ice was one dance.’

She was looking at some place forty years ago and Pierce let a polite amount of time elapse. _Things on ice turn up like a bad penny around here, Carter_ , he thought, and swallowed his amusement. ‘He already had what all soldiers want. Knowing you and all the Commandos were going to make it back home.’ He pretended to fumble. ‘I mean—’

‘Barnes didn’t make it.’

‘That’s right. I misspoke. My apologies.’

Of course, no celebrated heroic sacrifice for Barnes. The hero’s protector, the hero’s friend, the hero’s right hand, the hero’s this, the hero’s that, drafted into history like he’d been drafted into the war, buried in one of its footnotes.

It was hardly a tragedy, of course. He’d had other talents to be cultivated, once the old shell had fallen away and he’d been reborn as something better. What he’d been meant to be and had wanted to be all along.

Carter shook her head. ‘It was a da— a real shame.’

 _Not at all, Director Carter. You should know, you authorised it._ He doubted she had done so with any real knowledge of what Zola’s little projects were really about and who they involved, but she had been the one to set the good doctor up in the U.S., first in the SSR and then in S.H.I.E.L.D., and it had been her signature on the papers. Hadn’t she done plenty herself, with full knowledge? Other Agents had called her by her married name behind her back, or the Missus, or a variety of less savoury nicknames, but to Pierce she was always Director Carter. He respected her. He respected the fact that she understood that drawing the line or arguing about whether you’d crossed it or just skirted it was a bloodless exercise, a luxury people like them could never afford.

‘Do you think…’ She trailed off, swallowed, then tucked a stray lock of grey hair behind one ear before she went on. ‘We spend all day moving pieces around, and talking about what needs to be done and what can be done. What needs outweigh others. And sometimes I wonder if that’s all just a game. Just a way for us to pretend we haven’t mucked it all up, at the end of the day.’ She put her hand on his arm, a little flustered. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t think I am making much sense. Being a muddled old woman, I suppose.’

‘You are never muddled. And I don’t think you’ll ever be old, Director Carter.’

‘Ha!’ Her eyes might be starting to get heavy and rheumy with age, but they were as sharp as ever. ‘I’m retiring, Alexander. I only want to hear flattery from my grandchildren.’

He smiled briefly at that. ‘It’s worth it,’ he said. His eyes flicked towards the painting for the barest second. ‘What people like you and I do. It’s worth it. Even if sometimes it’s hard to remember.’

She slipped her arm into his so he could escort her back to the rest of the guests and soon enough they were whisked in a row of limos to S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ. Now Agent Thompson was waist-deep in a speech that promised to last until their deaths or the collapse of the Eastern seaboard, whichever came first, and Pierce took the chance to sneak out of the conference room unnoticed and make his way to the nearest computer room.

The champagne haze cleared up as he locked the door, selected the machine facing the corridor, turned on the terminal, and fished inside a silk-lined pocket for the paper where he had jotted down the necessary instructions. Lettering showed up on the screen and cast a green tinge across the desk. He hadn’t turned the lights on.

He glanced at his watch and allotted himself fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes before someone came looking for him. Not Laura, of course, but Nick certainly, Carter probably, maybe even Stark. As a member of the Central Security Council, there was no place in S.H.I.E.L.D. Pierce didn’t have access to, but being seen here and using his own credentials would raise all sorts of uncomfortable questions.

Pierce had never liked uncomfortable questions, even in his naive days. They always led to uncomfortable answers.

He’d committed the message from ’80 to memory a long time ago, given who had almost certainly sent it, and when the terminal prompted him for his user name and password, he typed in WWEISS and 32557038.

_Did you know that Professor Weiss used his old serial number as his access code?_

The screen went blank, then showed only a blinking cursor.

Professor—well, Doctor, to start with—Weiss was the identity Zola had been given when he’d been recruited and set up in his university post: a cover complete with a full set of papers and a history carefully scrubbed of any unsavoury connections. As for the access code, that could only refer to the various systems S.H.I.E.L.D. had set up throughout the years to secure its files. Pierce had gone through almost all of Zola’s personal documents he’d been able to track down, but so many traces of the good doctor’s handiwork would have been left behind in the least expected places. An expenses report in a filing cabinet in Accounting. Meeting minutes of a team long since disbanded. It was only now that S.H.I.E.L.D.’s files had all been gathered together, in the same book of ones and zeroes. He hadn’t even had to convince Carter—or Nick, or anyone else—to do it. They all saw its uses.

And the access code, well, Zola hadn’t had a serial number. What else would he use but a reminder of his greatest triumph?

Footfalls. He looked at the door, but whoever it was was already walking past. He could hear the din of the party, far off.

When he looked back at the screen, there was a list of files and directories. Zola’s old account, from the days of vacuum tubes and magnetic tapes, copied and sealed in ice forever.

 _Like a bad penny._ He could smile at it now.

He glanced at his watch again. Two minutes. Still plenty of time, if he worked fast and methodically, which he always did. He consulted his crib sheet and hunt-and-pecked across the keyboard to type the command that would enable him to search the account’s contents.

_FIND “algorithm” s:wweiss_

More noise. Not footfalls this time, only—he now realised—the whirr of fans and other machine parts he knew nothing about. He quietened his heart, looked at the list of files on the screen, then slipped his reading glasses on. The bile green of the computer text was starting to make his eyes ache a little.

A little over eleven minutes to go, and more than a screen’s worth of files, but he was not a man who moved by trial and error. He read the file names, the down arrow key ticking softly as he went along.

_OLYMPUS_

It was nearly at the bottom of the screen. Zola had had a system, that much was clear: each file had been labelled with a date, a truncated name, and a cluster of letters and numbers that must have made some kind of sense to the old bat.

Except this one file. Just one word, unmoored. He clicked it.

The screen went blank, and for a split-second Pierce wondered if he’d just made a horrible mistake.

Then another prompt appeared, a blinking cursor at the end.

Of course. He’d never really doubted.

> _PRESENT ACCESS KEY_

His hands moved above the keyboard, then stopped. You always played the man and not the game. If Zola had been the one who created the file, back in the day, then it had been copied complete with Zola’s locks and Zola’s traps. Best to tread cautiously.

He weighted the possibilities. The asset’s old name? Too straightforward. Zola’s birth date? Not even worth considering. Some other date, one that would be meaningless to anybody else? One of the asset’s old inactivation codes? A word? A number?

He glanced at his watch again, its hands nearly invisible in the dim light. You played the man and not the game.

He pressed a random key, tentatively, as though it would cause the screen to shatter.

The cursor didn’t budge.

That should be impossible. He knew very little about computer systems, but there shouldn’t be any file in the system without a security override, even the files only Hydra knew about.

> _PRESENT ACCESS KEY_

Not _enter access key._ Not _enter password_. He looked at the computer terminal. He couldn’t see any device where you might fit an electronic key, or an old-fashioned one, for that matter.

Voices sounded in the corridor. Pierce froze and remained absolutely still even as the sound of chatter moved away. He felt a breath leave his body, very slowly.

He had to hurry.

What kind of key had Zola come up with that would let you in—

A key that opened everything.

Could get in anywhere.

It was only the faintest ember of an idea, but he’d learned to nurture such flashes. They’d got him out of more than one sticky situation, after all.

He set it aside to look at later and logged out of Zola’s account before he typed in a new set of credentials.

NJFURY.

Did Nick keep a log of who accessed the system with his credentials and at what times? No doubt. What use would Pierce have for him if he weren’t that kind of person?

He typed the search commands again, this time instructing the system to bring up every file containing the word _Olympus_ , then glanced at his watch once, twice, three times as the seconds turned into minutes. Nick had access to almost all files, of course, and there were thousands of them. He was running out of time, but he couldn’t help the buzz under his skin, the fire licking his nerves. He hadn’t felt like this since his days as a field agent. Young, foolish, misguided—but also filled with that special thrill you got when you were on the hunt and hit upon a promising trail. Few sensations matched it.

A list of files began appearing on the screen. He glanced at his watch again— _come on, come on_ —and began skimming the names. Fortunately Olympus wasn’t a common word. Zola had done him that favour, at least.

There was a file called SITES_ARL_COMPUTINGPROJECTS_TERMINATED.

No flash of insight, this time, just the dullness of possibility. Soon after its founding and until the mid 70s, S.H.I.E.L.D. had shared space with the DoD at Johns Hopkins’ Applied Research Laboratory, and there Zola had worked like a busy little bee in his cover identity. Not long after his death, most of the various science and technology teams had been consolidated and relocated to new S.H.I.E.L.D. facilities, but they were not an organisation that let the past be swept away. They hoarded it as zealously as a desert traveller conserving water.

It was put on ice, to be brought out when it was useful again.

He selected the file and pressed the Enter key. The contents immediately started appearing on the screen. It was a level 1 clearance document; any file clerk could open it.

A text list of old ARL projects filled the screen. Some of the text had been redacted, but he ignored it. Years of training made his eyes skip almost immediately to the relevant entry.

_OLYMPUS: electronic network project_  
_Initiated: Mar/10/1972_  
_Terminated: Sep/04/1972_  
_Integrated into DARPA’s packet switching projects (see also: MIT/MULTICS)_

Sep/04/1972.

Zola had died two days later.

‘What were you up to, you son of a bitch?’ Pierce said as he closed the file, logged out, and shut down the terminal.

An algorithm excised from Zola’s own tapes, a locked file, an old network project. _Unfortunately so far it has only led to the personal files of our late friend and other dead ends._ An access key…

Weren’t he and Zola the only members of the most exclusive club in the world?

He was three steps out of the room when Howard Stark turned the corner.

‘Oh, there you are,’ Stark drawled. He sounded like he always did: smooth and a little bored.

‘Had to go recover from Thompson,’ Pierce said, and stepped to Stark’s side. ‘Is he still at it, or has he been tackled by armed agents yet?’ He made a mental note to keep an eye on Stark for the next few weeks, just to be on the safe side. ‘Nick still around? I need to talk to him about the Teddy Roosevelt plans. The island, not the president.’

‘I gathered. Two months in the Central Security Council and you’re already riding Fury, I see.’

‘I’m sure he doesn’t mind having me looking over his shoulder, as long as I only do it once in a while. How’s Anthony, by the way?’

‘Fine.’ Stark looked younger than the grey in his hair and moustache, but a little of his real age slipped into his shrug. ‘He prefers Tony these days.’ His tone made it clear he himself did not, though Pierce couldn’t imagine why he cared at all.

As they walked back to the gathering, Pierce wondered how soon he could fit in the trip to Maryland.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Central Security Council is a fictional organisation that is responsible for oversight of S.H.I.E.L.D. (in my fic, that is), basically a made-up civilian analogue to the U.S. Central Security Service. I’d make all the “you had one job” jokes here if it weren’t for the fact that Pierce is head of the Council at this point in time and I’m sure he’d argue they all did a bang up job toppling regimes, fomenting civil wars, and keeping the metric system down. Regarding Bucky getting drafted as opposed to enlisting, his service number in CA:TFA starts with 32, which was the code for someone drafted in Delaware, New Jersey, or New York. If he’d enlisted, the geographic code would have been 12 instead. Maybe the writers didn’t realise this, but oh well. It’s canon now. The Applied Research Lab is based on the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, which I am quite sure has 100% less Zola IRL.


	20. 1984

**6.**

**1984**

If the asset found the clothes strange, he gave no sign of it. It wasn’t true that he was emotionless. You just had to grow attuned to his strange little moods. Pierce had, and could now read him like an open book. At times, however—like now—the asset was simply blank. No, not blank; it was like wandering down a sunny city street and coming across a chasm into nothing, tucked out of sight behind a fountain or a strip of grass. He watched as the asset got dressed with the slow deliberation of a child, seemingly unperturbed by his own nakedness.

Idly, Pierce wondered if any of the asset’s handlers ever… took advantage of him. One of the guards, perhaps. The asset was sometimes taken out of cryo when Pierce wasn’t there, for periodic maintenance, and those kinds of transgressions would only be fully scrubbed out in Hydra’s new world. But no, it made no sense. The asset was always watched and recorded, the printouts kept and studied. The two of them entered the parking garage, Pierce in the front, the asset following a few steps behind. He was casing the area for any possible threats, Pierce knew, studying it for exits and weak points. The asset looked no different than he had inside the vault, but Pierce knew he was alert now. Touch him, and you’d find him almost feverishly hot. Once in the car he subsided again.

‘Do you understand the mission?’ Pierce asked once they had pulled into Massachusetts Avenue. Rain beat on the windshield.

‘Yes.’ The asset looked straight ahead, as though he’d been tasked with tailing the car in front of them. His hands sat on his knees. He blinked once in a while, as though he had to do it deliberately.

Pierce glanced at the inside of the car as the traffic slowed. A rental Chevy paid for in cash, a fake name, and a goal. It was just like being on the road again, stopping for bad coffee at odd little diners.

Of course, S.H.I.E.L.D. had never given him a partner like the asset.

‘You want the radio on?’ Pierce said, to break the silence.

The asset didn’t reply, didn’t acknowledge the question in any way. His body was tightly coiled, but Pierce could tell that was mostly instinct. There was the _chasm_ again, hidden under the skin.

‘I know you,’ the asset said.

It startled Pierce, but only a little. He waited a heartbeat before replying. ‘Of course you do.’

‘I know you,’ the asset repeated, and resumed his silence.

Pierce glanced at the asset. He kept staring straight ahead, as though the words had been pushed out of his mouth without his consent or knowledge. A patch of washed-out sun had appeared between the clouds, the pale light making his eyes dark, like two slicks of black ice on asphalt. _What have you said?_ Pierce thought, then, more importantly, _What are you thinking?_ The asset had tucked his hair under the cap, and against the car window his profile was finely etched, even delicate. Pierce could see himself cracking his skull open like an egg and carefully unspooling everything inside.

‘Who am I?’ Pierce asked, and let a note of testiness seep into his voice when the asset didn’t answer right away. ‘Say my name.’

The asset looked at him, and Pierce knew he shouldn’t have been concerned. There was nothing in the asset’s eyes beyond awaiting the next order, the next word. ‘Mister Pierce.’

‘Yes. How about some music?’ he added, mostly to himself.

He switched the radio on, skipped over the Top 40 stations, and stopped when he heard John Denver coming out from the speakers. He wondered what sort of music Barnes had liked, back in the day, before he’d withered away and left something better behind. Jazz, maybe? Pierce’s memories of the early 40s weren’t strong, and he could hardly recall what the grown-ups around him had listened to on the radio. It didn’t really matter. _Sunshine on my Shoulders_ would have to do.

Even with traffic, the drive wasn’t too long, and soon they were crossing the Maryland state line. The radio DJ came on again and in the middle of his natter a thought came to Pierce, sudden and startling: sitting in a docket while a judge from some upside-down world fulminated at him about the Federal Kidnapping Act.

He had to stop himself from laughing. If he started, he was going to cause an accident. He couldn’t suppress it entirely, though. It came out as a cough, and the asset looked at him until he stopped. Tears prickled his eyes.

And yet, it wasn’t just a joke, was it, no matter how absurd? There really were a few people with minds so twisted or so gullible that they would look at the asset and feel sorry for him. For someone who could, if he wanted to, reach sideways and rip out the steering wheel. Who could crush Pierce’s windpipe with one hand. Who could have some wire behind his eyes break or misfire and make him snap Pierce’s neck and drive the car into a wall, a lake, a crowd. Sob for someone who could, if he wanted to, go through a roomful of guards and techs like a hot knife through butter, or vanish into thin air during one of his missions, even detach the metal arm—he had been taught how to release it, in case of emergency—so the trackers inside couldn’t be used to located him. Let their hearts bleed for someone who hadn’t had a gun to his head when he’d drowned a man in a bathtub, or climbed a tower to put a bullet in a woman’s head half a mile away.

He shook his head to himself. Had he ever mistreated the asset? Had he ever done more to the asset than strike him, harmlessly, once or twice—a few times—to correct him, and not even every time the asset deserved it? Done anything worse than a few faint bruises that were gone from his flesh in an hour and from his mind not long after? Had he ever lashed out in anger, or for no reason at all?

He was kind. All things considered, he was kind. Sometimes too much.

He was even far from being the first man on whose orders the asset had killed.

***

The drive to the ARL, which sat by a picturesque little college town, wasn’t long, but by the time Pierce spotted the large complex of buildings, painted in garish colours and criss-crossed by parking lots and lawns, the rain had stopped, started, stopped again. Now it had turned into a drizzle as Pierce slowed the car and drove down the avenue abutting the campus. There were a few traffic barriers and a booth with a rent-a-cop, but security was lax. He had no trouble slipping the car in and parking it in a far corner where it would be hidden out of sight by an enormous oak tree. The ARL even produced brochures helpfully indicating where everything was located.

What was the best hiding place, if not in sight of everyone?

‘We can’t be seen by anyone,’ he told the asset. ‘All the people in there are civilians.’

‘Civilians,’ the asset repeated.

‘Right. You know the target location.’

The asset nodded. No visitors’ brochures for him, of course. The blueprints had been inserted into his brain the same way as any other knowledge he might need before a mission. Pierce hadn’t witnessed the process. Once or twice had been enough; it was a tad gruesome.

He unlocked the car door. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Wait,’ the asset said.

Pierce didn’t have time to react. He spotted the truck banking in their direction and understood what the asset wanted. They exited the car and walked towards the building where most of the computer labs were housed, the truck hiding them from sight as they moved. The asset walked between him and the truck, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched. ‘Wait,’ the asset repeated, as they passed a grass verge, and vanished into the trees.

Pierce slowed, annoyed that the asset hadn’t waited for his authorisation before taking off, impressed that he could vanish into thin air even in broad daylight.

He only felt the asset approach him again when he was practically at his back. He, who had once taken a shot in the dark, under the rumbling noise of a subway tunnel, and hit a hostile and moving target.

He wished he could see the asset in action. Real action, not practice runs. Just once.

‘There’s a window,’ the asset whispered behind him, and led them towards an overhang that would tuck them out of sight. Behind them, Pierce could hear a car rumbling in the parking lot.

The asset darted past him again and and vanished into an open basement window. He had moved in absolute silence. Pierce doubted he even had a shadow.

‘It’s safe,’ the asset said from inside the building as Pierce approached.

Just like old times, he thought, and after making sure no one was watching, ducked and slipped inside.

Hands grabbed him before he could land. The asset set him gently on the floor and nodded, once.

Pierce drew back, just a fraction surprised, and wiped some rain off his duffel coat. ‘Come on.’

The basement corridors were full of lockers, cupboards, and doors, but it didn’t take long for him to find the storage area, and the lock was so flimsy it took only a few seconds for the asset to jimmy it.

How many scientists knew the value of what they held?

The large room inside was very much like the rest of the basement: same puke-green linoleum floor, same off-white walls. There were rows of filing cabinets, old office furniture, metal shelving units full of binders and electronic equipment shrouded in dusty plastic covers.

Now, where would the Olympus files be? It was an abandoned networks project, the kind of thing that, from what Pierce could tell, was of interest mostly to wearers of bow ties and pocket protectors. He studied the labels on the filing cabinets closest to him.

Unless the trail Zola had left had been swept away in the intervening decade, the DoD eating up the breadcrumbs. If—

He drew back, glanced at the asset. He had done nothing and said nothing since they’d entered the room. Instead he stood in one corner, shoulders hunched again, hands back in his pockets, looking at a wall.

No, not _looking_. Empty, and waiting to be filled.

But why that wall?

Pierce looked around the room, as though an answer might present itself. The asset had the blueprints in his head. The asset could hear and see and smell things people couldn’t. Pierce thought back to the outside of the building, which looked like an ovoid spaceship had landed on a crate. He didn’t have a good memory; he had an _outstanding_ memory, and his training, though a little rusty, had only amplified it. He knew this room was in one of the corners of the building, and—

He looked at the row of windows just below the ceiling. One, two, three, four.

He thought back to his glimpse of the same row of windows as the two of them had been walking towards the building.

One, two, three, four, _five_.

He stepped up to the wall at the end of the room, covered in filing cabinets taller than him. Could he feel the barest draught on the skin of his face? Was that what the asset was sensing?

‘We need to get these cabinets out of here.’ He had barely got the words out before the asset grabbed one of the cabinets and pulled it away as though it were no heavier than a cardboard box, then did the same to two others.

Heat swelled in Pierce’s chest. The wall had been plastered and repainted, but the outline of the door was still visible. Half a handle stuck out, grey with dust. ‘Open it.’

The asset stepped in, grabbed the handle, and yanked the door open with a loud crack and a single pull of his metal arm. Plaster rained to the floor. The door swung ajar, into gloom. Cold air seeped out.

Pierce stepped past him. The window in the other room had been painted over, and the light was only enough to make out a metal staircase and shapes covered in tarpaulins. He felt on the wall for a light switch. There wasn’t one, of course.

‘Come on,’ he said, and started down the steps.

A white-blue haze splashed on the stairs. He turned around. The asset had pulled his left sleeve up, opened the plates on the underside of his lower arm, and activated a glowing light inside.

Bioluminescence. One of the scientists had bored him for a while about improvements made to the arm and at the time Pierce hadn’t paid much attention. Now he wondered if even more useful things could be fitted into it. A grappling gun, perhaps.

‘You are amazing,’ he told the asset.

The asset said nothing.

Pierce climbed down the stairs and started pulling the tarpaulins away. For a moment he felt a dash of apprehension: there were old and clearly broken monitors, coils of magnetic tape in an haphazard pile, ancient printers with form paper still hanging from them. It all looked like debris left behind after some disaster, and Pierce couldn’t help but wonder if this was another of the dead ends mentioned in the message.

But no, there was a computer terminal sitting on one of the tables. It was old, but it at least seemed intact. He wiped away a film of dust and pressed the on/off button.

Was there even any power down here?

There was. A row of lights came on. Fans spluttered to life. A pattern winked in the monitor in front of him once, twice, then was replaced by white text on a black background. The bottom of the screen flickered, perhaps with age.

> _PRESENT ACCESS KEY_

There was a stool under the table. Pierce pulled it out, ordered the asset to sit in front of the screen, and looked around for the lock. An old-fashioned portable videocamera perched on top of the screen, its hinge dark with rust. ‘Say “Winter Soldier”,’ Pierce commanded.

‘Winter Soldier.’ The asset blinked, very slowly.

> _ACCESS DENIED_

 _Christ_. No, the asset was the key, he was sure of it. He looked at the camera again, the unseeing eye of its open lens. He nudged the asset’s shoulder. ‘Look at that camera. No, straight at it.’

The camera buzzed to life. Pierce felt the asset tense further, but he kept his hand on his shoulder, and the asset stilled as the camera finished its sweep.

The words _KEY ACCEPTED_ appeared on the screen. Then it turned black, only to fill with white and grey, making up a flickering shape. More lights turned on. Machines spluttered and hummed. Fans kicked up dust.

‘Zola, you old bastard,’ Pierce said, his voice a little elated. He’d never thought he’d be so pleased to see that pudgy face again.

‘Greetings,’ a speaker said. The voice was mechanical, shot through with crackles of static. The camera turned to Pierce with a squeak of rusty metal. ‘Alexander Goodwin Pierce, born 11th July 1936.’

‘Yes, thank you for the reminder. It had almost slipped my mind.’

The camera turned towards the asset. ‘Winter Soldier,’ machine-Zola said. ‘Born 17th June 1947.’

A soft rustle of metal drew Pierce’s gaze down. The asset was taut like a violin string about to break. On his lap, his hands shook, even the artificial one. The metal arm, still open, made little clicking tremors. His eyes were fixed on the screen, wide and unblinking.

‘Look at me,’ Pierce said. ‘ _Look at me_.’ He yanked the asset’s face towards him. The fear in the asset’s eyes waned a little. He said something in a raspy whisper, too low to hear.

‘Speak up.’

‘Is this now?’ Louder, this time, but only barely.

‘I—Yes. Yes, it’s now. Go wait in the car.’ The asset did nothing. Pierce released his chin. ‘The mission’s completed. You can go wait in the car.’

The asset’s face drew in, lost in thought for a few seconds. Pierce could practically see the gears turning inside the maze. ‘Not without you,’ he managed to squeeze out.

‘Fine. Wall. Now.’

He leaned towards the screen on the table as the asset went off to some shadowy corner, where he would wait without further disturbance. Zola’s picture stared from the monitor, distorted by flickers every few seconds. Could a recording look smug, Pierce wondered?

‘Project Olympus,’ he said. The camera hummed again.

The machine-voice poured out from the speakers again. ‘You must be wondering—’ snap, crackle ‘—you have come here. As my successor, you have followed correctly the clues I have left for you.’

Pierce glanced at the keyboard. ‘Stop the recording.’

A quick burst of sizzling from one of the speakers. Laughter, Pierce realised.

‘This is not a recording, Councilman Pierce. I am as alive as you are, I assure you!’

Cold flicked down Pierce’s back. Were these machines… sentient, somehow? Each screen or rat-a-tatting box an organ of the whole?

Nonsense. He pushed the thought away. ‘Tell me about Olympus.’

‘I will do more than that.’ More screens flickered to life. One of them had a spider crack, suddenly backlit by grey. ‘I will show you.’

A black and white map appeared on one of the monitors. ‘In 1947, the new Hydra was reborn in the heart of S.H.I.E.L.D. From that first seed in our new home, we planted roots, sent eyes and ears to wherever power flourished. And then we began reaping: toppling regimes, controlling governments, starting wars.

‘And yet there is one obstacle standing between us and order.’ Letters and numbers started scrolling in the screens, too small for Pierce to make out. ‘We live in a world of chaos. There are too many events, too much chance, too many enemies we know nothing about. Future cancerous cells in our body.’

One of the screens winked out with a crackle of electricity. Another showed a web connecting places and names. ‘However, it is possible to master even chaos. There are no random events, Councilman Pierce. They can all be traced to a starting cause, no matter how big the event, how small the cause.’ Grainy black-and-white footage appeared on the cracked screen. ‘A domino that topples and makes the rest fall in a pattern that is as predictable as it is also inevitable. And so a nuclear bomb is detonated. Or a revolution is sparked.’

The working screens changed again. Now they showed a pattern of blocks and lines. ‘With enough information, the sequence of seemingly unrelated events can be traced back to that very first domino. A letter that is never sent. A newspaper notice. The death of some obscure person.

The linchpin.’

The pattern of blocks and lines shrank to be revealed as a grid of city streets. ‘And once we can read the past… then we can read the future.’

Pierce placed his hands on the table. ‘You want to find these—linchpins.’

Another burst of machine laughter. ‘ _Precisely_ so. Whoever controls knowledge, controls history. Find the linchpins before they become linchpins. Push that first domino—or scratch it out of existence. Topple the dominos in the right order and you can elect a leader. Or end a war, or perhaps start it. Hydra is to create a new reality while everyone else sleeps. And when they wake into this world of ours, we can create another, and another. All it takes is the right key.

‘So, in the years before my physical death, I began work on Argus.’ A jumble of images in the other screens: Zola lecturing in front of a blackboard, rows of equations. ‘An algorithm capable of sorting through a planet’s worth of information. Birth certificates. Newspapers. Finance transactions. A way to read order out of chaos. History is no longer the study of the past. It is the science of the future. It is our machine. And when a part does not work to our liking, it gets removed.’

Pierce glanced around the room. ‘Where’s this algorithm now?’

The speakers made a small metallic noise. Pierce was sure it was just static, but some part of him couldn’t help but hear it as a venomous little chuckle.

‘I am getting to that,’ the Zola-ghost said. ‘In the 1960s, a new idea started to take hold. Machines talking to machines, sharing information at the speed of light. The Department of Defence began a number of projects to make this a reality. And in 1972, when I received a terminal diagnosis, S.H.I.E.L.D. joined them. My body was beyond salvaging. The information contained in my mind, however, was a different story. It was copied and recreated into a brain, made of a city’s worth of magnetic tape. Just before my physical death, we folded our project into another network, and then another, and another. As one might transfer blood between two organisms. And my mind was transferred along with it.

‘Do you want to know what Olympus is, Councilman? You are standing in what’s left of its first body.’

Pierce drew back, and couldn’t stop himself from looking around, a weak shiver in his lower back. _This junk?_ But it wasn’t just junk, was it? He was not an impressionable man, but in the weak glow of the machines, the things in the room looked like the skeleton of some strange dead beast. A line from a half-remembered Easter Vigil floated up. _That leviathan, whom Thou hast made…_

‘You mean there are copies?’

‘The essential drives of all organisms! Birth, life-struggle, reproduction. Hydra grew inside S.H.I.E.L.D. like a virus inside a receptive host. And so I too grow as more and more machines join the network. Soon whole governments will be on-line. Then whole countries. The original tapes containing my mind and my algorithm are spread throughout a number of SHIELD facilities. But me, I have been transformed.’ All the screens filled with copies of Zola’s electronic face.

‘I am everywhere.’

A printer began to spit out a length of perforated paper. ‘You have already proved yourself worthy of one of my creations, Councilman. In a way we are both of us his father, wouldn’t you agree? So now it is up to us to be the fathers of the new order. The fathers of the final stage of history. I am giving you the physical locations of my Argus tapes and the keys you will need to open their electronic counterparts. I will leave it in your hands. And one day you will use it to read the future. Already so much of the world is at my fingertips—for lack of a better expression!’ The other faces vanished from the screens and were replaced with forms and documents. Pierce leaned forward to read them. _Christ_ —those were _his_ documents. Minutes from Central Security Council meetings. Microfiche versions of newspaper articles from when he’d been Deputy Secretary of State. Even a copy of his birth certificate.

‘One day all information will be knowable and connected. All those details from all those little human lives in the same book. You will have the key to read it. Then we can start erasing what needs to be erased. We can rewrite it. And from the world’s chaos Hydra will give it the order it needs.’

The machines started powering down. Zola’s voice grew slurred, words half-eaten by static. ‘It is so wonderful to be free of the flesh, Councilman! The only true immortality.’ The screens winked out, one by one, until there was only one left. ‘There is no time for me now. I have seen the future. It is all of it inevitable.’ The face distorted into an unrecognisable jumble. ‘Hail Hydra.’

The screen went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bit in which Pierce thinks about cracking Bucky’s head open and rifling through what’s inside was inspired (though the only direct quote is the _What are you thinking?_ bit) by a similar passage in Gillian Flynn’s _Gone Girl_ , and if you haven’t read it yet, you should go do so immediately. Also, I feel compelled to say that, while Pierce is a Nightmare of a Human Being, when he thinks that most people in-universe wouldn’t see Bucky as his victim, he’s not wrong. And the Winter Soldier assassinations would actually have very little to do with that, because unfortunately no matter how over-the-top abuse gets, how big the power differential, how clear-cut the situation, etc, many—if not most—people around it find a way to turn a blind eye to it or downright justify it. (One of the things I really liked about CA:TWS is that for all the super-soldiers and helicarriers and whatnot, it portrayed an abuser as a charismatic, popular, successful, socially skilled, etc person—his facade being so good that a lot of viewers don’t even seem to realise he’s the villain—and his victim as, well… not. Come for the super-serum, stay for the unflinching social commentary! ;)) The line _Is this now?_ comes, with a minor alteration, from the film version of _Minority Report_. Finally, while the ARL is based on a real institution, it’s a fictional place with fictional geography. Everything about it is made up. Oh, except for that bit about Zola’s digital brain being put on MIT’s Multics project, then ARPANET, and then the modern Internet. Obviously that part is 100% true. He’s in your cat videos _right now_.


	21. 1986

**7.**

**1986**

‘I promise I’ll get Andersson off your back, Nick.’ It was only a matter of waiting long enough, Pierce thought. The asset didn’t leave any clues behind, unless it was in Hydra’s interests for him to do so. ‘You want another coffee?’

‘I’m good, Al, thanks.’

At work, Nick was usually a stickler for formality, and he peppered his words with _Councilman_ or _sir_. But they were in Pierce’s home, sitting in his study under the crisp light of a September Sunday, and therefore he was as close to relaxed as Director Fury ever allowed himself to be.

‘So, those Triskelion plans,’ Pierce said. Nick hadn’t brought them with him, which Pierce found sensible. There could be prying eyes anywhere, especially in the places you least expected.

‘How long for you to get the Council to take their heads out of—the sand?’

That was one of the things Pierce appreciated most about Nick: always down to brass tacks.

‘Don’t worry too much about the Council, we’re all too busy proving we have our hands clean in this Contras mess. You could probably sneak a bomber past them. Not a stealth bomber, either.’

‘Are they?’

Pierce drank the last sip of his coffee. ‘Are they what?’

‘Clean.’

Pierce chuckled. Nick joined him after a fraction of a second. Well, insofar as Nick was capable of chuckling. He cooled quickly and picked up his thread of conversation again. ‘I just don’t want a hatchet job on the front page of the _Post_ about the secrets of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s HQ. Or whatever they’d call it. Probably something catchier.’

‘If it gets out—’

The corner of Nick’s mouth twitched in displeasure. ‘ _When_ it gets out.’

Another of his great qualities: preparing for the worst mattered a lot more than hoping for the best.

‘Fine, Nick. When it gets out… There are still all kinds of ways of looking at things.’

Nick looked at him, doing that thing he did when he dug a hole of silence and waited for other people to fall into it. Pierce went on. ‘You heard about New Delhi?’

The other man cocked his remaining eyebrow. ‘Yeah. I heard about New Delhi.’

Of course he had. Not for the first time, Pierce wondered if he should put some of the cards on the table. What a valuable addition to Hydra Nick would be. He always ended up deciding against it, almost against his will. Some people did their best work unknowingly.

‘There was a reason they were at Camp David, Nick. Collective security—’

The phone rang. Pierce sat still for a second, waiting for Laura to pick up, then remembered he had let Abby go roller-skating. Her mother had taken her to the rink. ‘Excuse me one second.’ He rose from his armchair to take the call in the study’s extension.

‘Alexander Pierce.’

‘Hello. Hi. Umm.’ It was a woman’s voice. He didn’t recognise it. ‘This is Potomac Pest Control. It’s about—it’s about the call-out.’

His blood turned to cold sludge.

‘Sorry, I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong number. … No problem. Bye.’

That had been the code saying something had gone wrong with the asset. Something bad enough for them to call him at home.

Nick waited two seconds before resuming the conversation. ‘An intelligence alliance with a non-aligned country. What’s the Kremlin going to say, Al? More importantly, what are they going to do?’

Pierce stepped away from the desk, collected as ever, slight smile on his lips. Nick wasn’t able to sense his heartbeats, he told himself; that was beyond even his powers. ‘This is bigger than us and the Soviets. Or smaller. Seventy thousand nuclear warheads? You and I both know that the real threats aren’t about governments anymore. They aren’t about armies. All it takes is one man with a plan and the will to see it through. And—’ He pretended that another thought crossed his mind. ‘You know what, Nick? I’m going to make myself another coffee. You don’t mind, do you?’

It was the eyepatch, Pierce knew. It made Nick’s face even harder to read, and made you think you saw things that weren’t there. ‘Go right ahead.’

He didn’t hurry as he moved downstairs to the kitchen, and he took the time to get the coffeemaker started before he picked up the kitchen extension and dialled a number he knew by heart.

One, two, three rings.

The coffeemaker rumbled away.

On the sixth ring, someone finally picked up. ‘I told you not to call me here,’ he said in a thorny whisper.

‘Sorry, Mr—’

‘No, don’t use my name. What happened?’

‘The, ah, he was hit—’ It was the same woman from before. She drew away from the handset on her end and Pierce could hear her panicked breathing. There were noises on the line. He couldn’t make them out.

‘Are you still there? Come on, answer me.’

There was a rustle as she picked up the phone again. She spoke too loud and the handset was pressed too hard against his ear; she almost startled him. ‘He was hit. It was a grenade. Or—something. I—they patched him up and cooled him at the rendezvous point and flew him back in, but—

Oh god.’

She wasn’t speaking to him. Far off, on the other end of the line, he could hear yelling. There was a pop of sound, maybe a shot.

‘Pick up the phone. _Pick up the phone_ ,’ he hissed.

‘I think I’ll have another coffee after all.’

Pierce pressed the handset to his chest. Nick’s voice, in the upstairs landing. God, sometimes you just wanted to fit him with a bell.

‘If you don’t mind,’ Nick added.

Pierce stepped as close to the corridor as the phone cord allowed. ‘Of course. Cream, no sugar, right?’ The woman’s voice poured out from the headset, muffled against his shirt.

‘That’s right.’

He ducked back into the kitchen and resumed the call. ‘Did someone shoot him?’

‘No. I—I—’

He knew what this was: shock. If he let her, she was going to keep stammering on the phone until the asset was dead. ‘Listen to me,’ he said, kind but firm. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Gerber. Gerber-like-the—’

‘OK, Gerber. Do not let anyone harm him, do you understand? Whoever’s in there waving guns around, tell them to stand down. Those are my orders. Put him under—no, I don’t care about the risk, he can take it. Tell them to put him under and tell the guards to stand down. Go do that now, Gerber. Now. Go.’

He put the handset down on the counter and went to the kitchen door. ‘Be right up, Nick.’

If Nick answered, Pierce didn’t hear him. He was already picking up the phone again. ‘Talk to me, Gerber. Did you put him under?’

There was a small sound of hesitation, or perhaps panic, then she spoke again. ‘Yeah. Yeah, he’s almost under.’

‘Good. Good job. You did well, Gerber. Is he fixable?’

‘I, umm, I don’t know.’ She was tongue-tied again.

‘Gerber, is he fixable?’

‘They’re just starting work on him, and… Do we terminate if he—’

‘Christ’s sake, _no_. Make sure everyone does their jobs. I want him in shape, do you understand? If you can’t do that… just stabilise him. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

He hung up, took the coffees up on a tray. His hands didn’t shake.

_Come on, Nick. Clear out so I can go._

But of course the two of them weren’t done, not yet.

‘You know, the H in S.H.I.E.L.D. stands for _homeland_ ,’ Nick said, not without a dollop of humour, then added, ‘And I trust you’re not going to give me the root causes lecture.’

‘No. I’m just going to ask if you think we can afford not to think globally?’ He stirred a little milk into his coffee. Grenade? Since when wasn’t the asset capable of tossing grenades away like tennis balls? He looked Nick in the eye. ‘I think you know that more than anyone.’

Nick picked up his cup. ‘Go on.’

‘No more near-misses. Pinpointing a threat before it even becomes a threat. Because you and I both know that these days, by the time we pick something up in Islamabad or Panama City, it’s already in New York. By the time we pick something up in Seattle, it’s already in D.C.. And if we ever pick something up in D.C., it’ll be when it’s already too late and we’re picking through the pieces.’

‘I’m well aware, Al.’ He kept stirring his coffee. The noise of the spoon against the china was getting on Pierce’s nerves.

The Gerber—what kind of a name was that, anyway?—woman had brought up termination. Termination, of all things. How badly injured was the asset? Past the point of salvage? He drank his coffee, which was still very hot but settled cold in his stomach.

His skin felt itchy.

‘You’re talking about Insight,’ Nick said.

Pierce had changed the algorithm’s name before feeding the materials to the right R&D team. Trust Zola to have picked something like Argus.

‘You heard about that?’

Nick took a sip of his coffee. ‘There isn’t anything inside S.H.I.E.L.D. I don’t hear about. Even when all there’s to it is some slides from J3 and some pie-in-the-sky theorising.’

‘And you prefer to keep both feet on the ground.’ A shared sliver of a smile. The asset healed better and faster than ordinary people, but how much better? If he lost more parts, could they be replaced? ‘I’m not going to pretend I understand the technical details. But if one day we had the ability to gather enough information to use it… I don’t want to beat my enemies, Nick. I want to know who they are before they become my enemies.’ He made a gesture before Nick could speak. ‘I know, I know. The root causes lecture. I’m just saying that’s what we both want, isn’t it?’

The asset, alive but too damaged to be of use, stored in a dusty warehouse until technology yet to be invented could repair him. Frozen, out of reach.

_Stop thinking about it. He’ll read it in your face._

No, of course he wouldn’t.

‘If,’ Nick said, his solitary eye still and knowing. ‘You know, I never liked that word. Always seemed to have too much hidden in two little letters.’

A ring. No, it wasn’t the telephone again, just some car noise from outside.

‘“When” is better,’ Pierce said. A flash of memory: he’d been one of the first people to see Nick after he’d lost the eye and the other man had made a sharp-edged joke about seeing it coming.

‘You know why I joined S.H.I.E.L.D., Al?’ Nick said, his tone flat. ‘To protect people.’

Pierce took another sip of his coffee. ‘People like saying “peace through strength”. I’ve never thought it was about strength. It’s about freedom. Freedom from fear.’

***

Two hours. It was almost two hours since the call. Trust Nick to want to discuss details of things that didn’t even exist yet. He’d turn every stone in search of a frog, or a land mine.

He didn’t recognise the woman who stepped forward to meet him inside the vault.

‘Are you Dr Gerber?’

Her eyes were wide. With her features and her auburn hair, she reminded Pierce of a panicky fox. ‘Yes. Gerber-like-the-baby.’ It sounded like something she said automatically. ‘We—’

‘Where is the asset?’

‘I think the surgeons are done with him,’ she squeaked. ‘He should be in recovery now. I—ah, I’m a biochemist, I don’t—’

Pierce could see signs of a struggle as they moved to the back of the underground complex. There was a spot on the floor where broken glass and blood still hadn’t been cleaned up. ‘What happened here?’

‘The asset, umm, attacked one of the guards. We had to send him to a hospital?’ Her eyes widened a little further, looking for reassurance.

He nodded. Nothing ever got done here, or at S.H.I.E.L.D. in general, without at least one or two cover stories, and if worst came to worst, loose ends could always be cut off. ‘We did meet before, Dr Gerber.’

The woman stopped.

‘The meeting last year in New Mexico.’

‘Oh. Right. I—’

He ignored her and made his way to the little surgical room near the back. He hadn’t had many reasons to go there before. It was used for when they needed to fiddle with the attachment for the asset’s arm, or patch something up before they stuck him back on ice, or when the asset needed something inserted or removed. Pierce had never concerned himself too much with it. He’d never even been into the small cubicle where they had him scrub and put a ridiculous paper gown over his suit, even though the asset could fight off most infections. Still, he didn’t mind the precautions.

If it would help save the asset.

The asset had done his damage inside this room as well. A pile of spilled instruments had been swept into one corner, a nurse pressed some ice against a black eye. The commotion was over now. The team was clearing away sheets and gauze and surgical trays soaked with blood. A surgeon appeared at his side and began to drone on, verbose with nerves.

Pierce ignored him, and sat down by the asset. The flesh wrist and both ankles were cuffed to the sides of the bed and the lower portion of the metal arm was wrapped inside some kind of plastic that was too opaque for Pierce to make out anything other than a charred shape. The asset lay covered by a green sheet spotted with blood, lumpy here and there where it sat on bulky bandages. An anaesthetist worked away on him, adjusting valves on the tangle of drip bags connected to the asset’s arm, unhooking the oxygen mask muzzling him.

The asset’s face had been shaved recently and there were dark bags under his eyes. Pierce supposed that made the asset look younger, but maybe that was just his own age talking. The asset was in his twenties. The asset was always in his twenties.

It had been six and a half years since the two of them had first met.

He never forgot an anniversary.

‘Can he be repaired?’

‘There was quite a lot of damage to his left leg and lower abdomen,’ the surgeon said. ‘No irreversible damage to any major organs, happily. I’ve been told the arm should be fully functional after the engineers have replaced whatever needs to be replaced. But as for the rest…’

‘You don’t know yet,’ Pierce said, not bothering to turn around.

The asset made a weak noise and his eyes rolled under the lids as the anaesthetist removed the tubing from his mouth and throat.

There were only a few cuts and faded bruises on the asset’s shoulder and the exposed part of his chest. He healed so fast.

‘Is he waking up?’

‘He should be, yes,’ the anaesthetist said. ‘I just need to figure out the morphine dosage as…’

Pierce didn’t listen; he already knew the asset was different from ordinary people. He waited, not daring to look at his watch. He didn’t know how long it took until the asset’s eyes finally opened a crack. Long enough for him to stop noticing the overpowering odour of antiseptic and, underneath, the smell of blood.

‘Mission report,’ Pierce said, his voice gentle as a caress. He raised his hand almost without noticing and brushed the asset’s hair away from his forehead, just for a few seconds, before he let his hand drop back to his lap. ‘Come on. Mission report.’

The asset could barely speak. The words came out in lumps. ‘Targets… eliminated.’

‘And the grenade? You didn’t see it?’

‘Saw it. Heard it.’ He winced, closed his eyes again. ‘But the team…’

All this for the sake of trying to shield those people? _Good grief_. ‘I should let you die for doing something like that,’ Pierce said, his tone still gentle. The asset stirred again. He was in pain, even with the morphine. The anaesthetist moved to adjust the dosage, but stilled when Pierce looked at him. The asset’s eyes widened, but he didn’t make a gesture, a sound. Pierce stared at him for a few moments, then looked back at the anaesthetist, and nodded. The man resumed his task.

Pierce might be annoyed at the asset, but he didn’t want to punish him, not now. He wanted to reach inside his head, tenderly, and brush all the debris away.

‘You’ll be fine,’ Pierce said, then added, ‘Don’t leave,’ as though that would keep the asset alive.

It would, if it were up to the asset. He would force himself to obey, by sheer force of will, because there was no room for anything else.

Pierce remained by the asset’s side as the morphine worked its effect and his breathing evened. He didn’t want to lose the asset. It wasn’t simply a matter of his usefulness, as large a consideration as that was. There was a tightness in his chest, and Pierce couldn’t remember when he had last felt it. Alice in Bogotá, he supposed.

Sometimes the asset would try Pierce’s patience. But then there was that moment, every time the asset was taken out of cryo. Before the flesh had warmed completely, when the asset’s blood was still sluggish and his skin wet with his birth fluids. His eyes would open, blank at first, just two slivers of oceanic ice, grey-blue, cloudy with confusion and sometimes pain. Then the asset would see Pierce and his eyes would change, sharpen. Turn into compass needles pulled by true north.

To see that, focused on you: Pierce was sure few things on Earth compared to it.

‘Don’t leave,’ he repeated, lower. This time it was an order.

He didn’t like to think of the day when it would all be over, and what would happen next.

***

They told him the asset would be fixable.

***

‘Wipe him,’ Pierce said. He hadn’t told the team to knock out the asset first, so they hadn’t. He watched the asset’s breathing quicken, then the machine started up and the asset sucked in gulps of air in between muffled screams.

He didn’t stay for the whole thing. The asset was so infuriating when he made Pierce do this.

***

Harrison had told Pierce the Baron was always punctual, which was a quality Pierce valued, but even so the seconds that stretched after the appointed time felt like years. Neither of them said anything. Harrison had taken his jacket off, and he rolled up his sleeves before he started rearranging the few things on his desk.

Pierce did nothing. He wanted his mind in shape for what was coming next.

Last week he and Nick had talked about the latest work that had been done on the algorithm, and the reports from the data gathering and analysis team Nick had created around it. They didn’t belong to any official division or department. Pierce already knew that, of course; the Hydra members in the team had been vetted by him personally.

The phone rang. Harrison let it do so twice before he picked up.

‘This is Senator Harrison.’ He sounded a little more subdued than usual. ‘Yes, I will. … Thank you, sir.’

No mentions of Hydra, of course. This was a secure line, but even so you never knew who might be listening.

He passed the handset to Pierce. ‘It’s for you.’

_Can never pass up an opportunity for a little jab, right, Harry?_

‘Hello,’ he said to the receiver. The plastic felt cold against his face.

‘Hello, Councilman Pierce,’ the voice on the phone said. Pierce had tried to have no expectations, but he couldn’t help but be a little surprised. The voice was smooth, perhaps even a little warm, accent and all.

‘It’s an honour to finally talk to you, Baron,’ Pierce said.

‘Oh, no need to stand on ceremony,’ the voice said, breezy. ‘May I call you Alexander?’

‘Of course.’

Behind the desk, Harrison had taken out a cigarette and tapped it against his lighter. Pierce ignored his look.

‘I’ve heard that a late friend of ours left you a very interesting legacy. Or another very interesting legacy, I should say.’

‘Still early days, I’m afraid. Of course, if we were sure it’d work, I’d have let you know—’

‘No, no.’ He sounded amused. ‘Please don’t worry about that, Alexander. I think the Senator made a—what’s the term?—too big a deal out of it. He made it sound as though you were going behind his back on this.’

Smoke curled in the air. The bakelite handset felt slightly slippery against Pierce’s hand.

‘Nothing like that, sir.’ He used his flattest tone. ‘I just didn’t see the point of reporting anything until I was sure I had something to report. Something that isn’t just numbers on a blackboard.’

‘Like I said, Alexander, I’m not concerned about that.’ Did Pierce detect the smallest tinge of testiness in his voice? ‘You and your friend the Senator can sort it out amongst yourselves. It’s not really a disagreement, is it? And besides, I think we all know there’s not really anything that happens behind my back, surely.’

_Trap?_

‘Of course, sir.’

‘Besides, what I really want to talk about is our late friend’s other legacy. You’ve been very successful with it.’

‘Yes. He is very useful.’

‘I really should have called you earlier to offer my congratulations. And thanks, I suppose. You have such a keen sense of where to use him that most of the time the Senator doesn’t even have to tell you.’

The handset should be warm by now, but cold trickled down Pierce’s ear. ‘I believe he has served our interests well,’ he said after half a second, then nudged his piece across the board. ‘I would always be happy to hear from you, of course.’

There was a velvety chuckle in response. ‘No, I think sometimes it’s useful to keep things separate, Alexander. Two heads are better than one, isn’t that the saying?’ Especially if one happened to be cut off, Pierce thought. The voice went on. ‘But some friends of ours—well, I’m thinking of a friend in particular, an oil executive, perhaps you’ve met him, he knows quite a lot of people. I think he’d like to see our other friend’s legacy. I think he’d also have very interesting uses for him. In the spirit of serving our interests, of course.’

Pierce felt his hand squeeze the phone so hard he was surprised the plastic didn’t squeak. The thought of lending the asset to someone else made something under his skin curdle. Letting another person step into the vault, or worse, wrapping up the asset like a gift and shipping him off. It made his skin crawl as much as the idea of someone rifling through his private appointment book, or sneaking into his home to inspect his nightstand or his desk drawers.

‘Of course, sir.’ He did his best to keep his voice warm. ‘I’m sad to say it’s not up to me, though.’

‘Oh?’

The asset being returned damaged.

The asset being returned intact. That was worse. There’d be no clues left on the flesh and skin to tell Pierce what’d happened.

‘He’s been injured. Hard to say when he’ll be ready to return to active duty…’

‘Ah, yes, I remember.’ Still cordial. ‘Afghanistan, wasn’t it? What an unlucky place.’

‘… and when he does—his mind is unusual. Personally, it’d be easier if he could receive orders from anyone—’

‘But he listens only to you, is that it?’ The Baron still sounded breezy, but Pierce was sure he could feel the teeth, just under the surface. He didn’t have time to think about his next move, though: the voice on the phone was already speaking again. ‘I understand. A lot of our volunteers can be like that. Perhaps if our other friend relays his requests through you? I suppose you’re a very busy man, though. It might not be too practical. It’d be almost impossible with a man like the Senator, of course, a man of his position. But in any case there’s not even a point in talking about it now, I suppose. Though no doubt he will have a speedy recovery.’

The words kept sticking to Pierce’s skin. ‘No doubt,’ he repeated, with a mechanical touch of good humour.

‘It was a pleasure to finally speak to you, Alexander. I am sure we’ll speak again, very soon.’

He didn’t have enough time to unpack the Baron’s words. The other man was already adding more.

‘I hope Director Fury is doing well. My regards to your family.’

Pierce’s mouth was dry. ‘Thank you, sir.’

The line went silent, just a faint electronic crackle in the background. The the dial tone came back. Pierce let it wash over him for a moment, before he passed the handset back to Harrison.

‘Spill,’ the Senator said after a while. There were two cigarettes crushed on the ashtray.

Pierce said nothing, which he was sure was irritating the other man, even though it wasn’t a ploy. He felt oddly exhausted by the conversation, but it wasn’t that kind of low-grade fuzziness that sometimes happened when you’d been in committee too long, or agenda papers started blurring together. Instead it as though he was back to chasing suspects on foot instead of having a polite phone conversation while sitting in a plush armchair. If he touched his chest, would he find his heart racing, he wondered.

‘He wanted to talk about the asset,’ he said. He supposed that’s all he would manage for a while. Hydra wasn’t about leaders, it was about order. The closer you got to the centre, the more you were expected to know what to do without having to be told. You would know how best to achieve the vision. So there were circles within circles inside the Baron’s words. Pierce had known that long before he picked up the phone, long before he found the first message on his desk all those years ago, long before he saw the asset’s face for the first time, in a black and white photograph where he was shrouded in ice.

Had Zola’s algorithm foreseen all this?

Harrison leaned back in his chair. ‘I’m sure he did.’

‘You know he can’t say too much on the phone.’

‘I think he can say enough.’ His body and voice might be relaxed, but he wasn’t, Pierce knew. And he might be too old, too savvy, and too weathered to be jealous, but it was still true Pierce had something he didn’t, for all Harrison was at the centre of Hydra’s circles for the entire continent. Pierce had something no one else did.

He thought of the asset again, of seeing him emerge from ice and death for the first time. Of that moment between his eyes being closed and him seeing Pierce for the very first time. His eyelids had been so bluish with cold Pierce had wondered if they were frozen solid, and if a thumb pressed against the skin would crack it open.

‘He knew the asset was injured,’ Pierce said.

Harrison sat up a little straighter and half his mouth pulled up into a grin. ‘Of course he did. Just as I knew about your little side project before you told me about it.’ Even this close, Pierce could see only a little grey in Harrison’s hair, even though the other man was pushing sixty. Did he dye it? He had far more cameras on him, after all, but Pierce couldn’t help but see it as a tasteless bit of pandering.

‘I thought you weren’t going to pull rank on me, Harry,’ he said. ‘And I don’t really like being called on the carpet like I’m some kind of misbehaving child.’

‘Come on, Al, let’s cut the crap,’ Harrison said, and reached for another cigarette. ‘We’ve been friends for what, ten years now?’

‘Eleven.’

‘Eleven, then.’ He took his time lighting his cigarette and taking a long drag. ‘And this is the best piece of advice anyone’s ever going to give you. Men like us, we spend so long grabbing the tiger by the tail, it can slip right out of our minds. But we should never fuck too much with something that can fuck us back even harder.’

Pierce smiled. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it, Harry.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Baron’s oil executive friend is a shout out to Lukin from the comics. I don’t think he really exists in the MCU, since Pierce pretty much takes over his narrative role in CA:TWS, but I thought it would be amusing to bring him up. Especially during Pierce’s whole _If I can’t have him, no one else will_ thing. The Baron in this chapter is not necessarily the same Baron von Strucker we see in the first CA:TWS teaser. Or maybe he is! But he might not be, since a) Strucker is hardly the only baron in the Marvel universe; b) it’s an hereditary title and all. I wanted to leave Hydra’s ultimate leadership a bit up in the air in this fic, as I think it works better that way (and they’re not exactly a mass movement, obviously).


	22. 1987

**8.**

**1987**

The asset was unarmed. The STRIKE agents were not, and Pierce had specifically requested live ammo. Even so, the asset completed the obstacle course in the time it took Pierce to finish his coffee.

This was as close as he would ever get to seeing the asset in action, Pierce considered. Muted by bullet-proof glass, with the asset hobbled by the need not to maim or kill. Even so it sped Pierce’s heart a little, fired up his nerves. Below the observation deck, the asset grabbed the Glock off an agent’s hand and forced him down with a twist of his arm just before he half-spun around and sent another agent flying with a kick. It wasn’t about being the strongest, or the fastest, or the most ruthless, even though the asset was all those things. It was about being a blade, a bullet. It was about being only hot lead or steel on its way to a target, uncontaminated by fear or weakness or pain.

No, not completely, he realised. The asset was still favouring his right side a little. Once or twice he used his metal arm purely as a shield rather than a weapon.

‘Do it again,’ Pierce told the asset when it was over. The asset’s eyes were dull, his breathing even. There was only a light sheen of sweat on his skin. Pierce wondered how long would the asset run on his orders until he dropped from exhaustion, how many blows could the asset deliver until his bones began to crack and his sinews to tear.

The asset’s gaze sharpened a fraction. His eyes turned toward Pierce’s, then lowered. He nodded. His hair was a little tangled and there was a cut on the right side of his jaw, but the bleeding had long since stopped and the flesh, Pierce was sure, was already knitting itself back together. The asset healed cleanly. The asset always healed cleanly.

‘You heard the boss, guys,’ one of the agents said to the reserve team members. Rumlow something, not even six months in STRIKE and already cocky about it. Pierce couldn’t blame him too much. He might be wet behind the ears, but he’d earned it by doing. ‘Time to get off the bench.’

He had the asset do it again, and again, and again, until Pierce could finally tell him he was perfect.

***

She’d waited until Abby’s school break was over to move out of the house and back to her mother’s. That was what angered him the most, even more than the fact that he had not seen this coming.

Now they were sitting the closest they’d been for the past six and a half months, on opposite sides of the law firm’s polished mahogany table. So close Pierce could see the age lines on the corners of Laura’s eyes, the colourless down on the underside of her chin. Once in a while he let his thumb fiddle with his class ring. He’d already removed the wedding band.

It wasn’t hot anger, which he seldom felt. He was calm, collected, at ease. ‘No need to make this complicated,’ he said with equanimity when asked about not retaining his own counsel. This was all very civilised. They were all friends here, weren’t they? Well, at least Laura’s attorney was, chuckling along with Pierce, explaining this or that passage in the papers. His assistant, a singularly plain woman with a face stretched up by an old-maid bun, sat instead in shuttered silence, once in a while saying something to Laura in a whisper.

Whisper, whisper. He pressed the soft pad of his thumb against the underside of his ring until it hurt. What were they saying to each other? Who’d put the notion of divorce in Laura’s head?

‘I want Abigail to live with me,’ Laura said. Other than the greetings at the start and the occasional mumble of acquiescence, they were the first words she’d spoken during the entire meeting.

Not hot anger. He wasn’t going to yell. He wasn’t going to put a stop to this. He sure wasn’t going to make a spectacle of himself. He was going to sign the divorce papers and when the guys from the moving company came to pick up the stuff Laura was getting, they’d find most of the things already neatly packed and an ice-cold six-pack waiting in the fridge. He was going to pay the agreed-on alimony on time, and without complaint. Probably throw in a little extra once in a while. Lend her a Secret Service driver if she ever needed one.

Hot anger was for hotheads. Cold anger was a pared-down blade of ice. You could tuck it away and bring it out when needed.

‘She’s seventeen,’ he said, sounding good-humoured. ‘I’m guessing that’s old enough to pick where she wants to live.’

‘Correct,’ the attorney said. He must love that word, Pierce decided. He always did this little bird-like head thrust whenever he used it. ‘With older teens, custody arrangements…’

Pierce tuned him out, even as he nodded once in a while and pretended to give the man his full attention. He could watch Laura, even if his eyes weren’t focused on her. He could try to see if she would give it away, where she’d acquired this— He didn’t know what to call it. He thought of fevers and diseases.

What had ever been demanded from her, really? Goddamn it, he wasn’t one of those men who kept tabs on their wives, and wanted them to account for every last cent, and flew into rages if their dinners weren’t ready when they wanted or if their wives so much as looked at another man. He hadn’t even asked her to be smart, or accomplished, or one of those society wives who managed to show up in glossy magazines in between all the fundraisers and charity galas they put together.

All he’d really expected from her was a reasonably pleasant house, well brought up children, and for her not to embarrass him in public. He’d loved her, of course, but more importantly he’d always treated her as she deserved to be treated: birthdays and anniversaries celebrated in style, summers in the Hamptons and Martha’s Vineyard, trips abroad or to the theatre or the ballet whenever the whim struck her, generous amounts of spending money, fine dining, polite conversation. For a while he had wondered if she was having an affair. That at least would explain this. That would be forgivable. He’d never strayed, but he was an honourable man, and they would be able to move past it. But the only man she’d been meeting with was her attorney, and she hadn’t been calling anyone from her mother’s house.

It would keep bothering him long after it stopped making him angry, like a pebble in his shoe.

He approached her when they stopped for a coffee break and the two of them were the only people in the room. She stood by the window, cradling a styrofoam cup in her hands, looking out, not drinking. She was wearing her usual perfume, but her hair—had it always been this mouse colour?—was down instead of in the usual up-do that bared that sweet spot on her neck, and her breasts, which were her best feature even at almost fifty, were hidden under a shapeless sweater. He’d brought a tailored suit and his best smile.

‘Thank you for this, Laura.’

She seemed to shrink around her cup. Christ, you’d think she’d at least have the gumption to look him in the eye.

‘Hope you enjoy my money,’ he added.

Her face turned towards him. ‘I don’t—’

‘No, no.’ He made a dismissive gesture. ‘I don’t mind. You clearly need it a lot more than I do.’ She lowered her eyes as that, as he knew she would. She was a flincher, always had been. ‘I suppose you’re going to stay at your mother’s. How old is she now? Seventy-five? Guess it won’t be long until she needs you to feed her and bathe her. Maybe she’s quieter now. Maybe you won’t have to complain as much as you used to when we got married, remember that? You couldn’t wait to get away from her. She must be easier to handle now. I can’t imagine an old lady calling a grown woman an ungrateful little cow.’

Laura said nothing. Her eyes were half-closed, which felt like a barb. He wanted to make her open them. He wanted to lift his fingers and, gently but firmly, slide the eyelids up.

‘I’m sure you’ll find something to get you out of the house, though.’ He spoke with considerable bonhomie. ‘Even you can come up with something to fill your head. Maybe you can pretend you’re forty-five and find another husband, have a few years before he trades you in for a younger model. Or you can go find yourself, all that New Age stuff. Sounds like a waste of time, but it’s none of my business.’ He took a sip of his coffee.

‘Alexander, please.’

 _Please._ His eyes drifted down from her face to her wrists, where the skin was stretched over breakable, bird-like bones. _Please_. He hated her right then, just a little, just for a moment.

He couldn’t help but think of her in a drugged sleep. The jaws of a machine closing around her head, like they did around the asset’s head, then wiping off whatever trash was making her do this as easily as an error was erased from a blackboard. Then everything would go back to normal.

He drew a little closer to her. There was still a handspan between them, but it was enough for her to feel the weight of him, he was sure. ‘I can tell you one thing, though: I don’t know why you decided to pull this now or what kind of crap you put in Alice’s head to make her only come home once in a blue moon, but you’re not going to do the same with Abby, do you understand?’ The pleasantness was gone from his voice. ‘You think she doesn’t call me? Tell me how much she hates it at grandma’s? You think I would ever let my children be upset?’

She didn’t answer, didn’t even pull back, but two spots of colour appeared on her cheeks.

And wouldn’t that be proper, he thought, if she walked out of here wild-eyed and flustered? He might not be in the public eye much, but D.C. was a small place, and the people in the know were going to talk about this. And they’d say: _I heard she was the one who asked for a divorce._ And: _No, I don’t think she’s marrying someone else._ And: _Yeah, I know Pierce, stand-up guy._ And: _She must be crazy._

Crazy. Wasn’t that the truth, however you wanted to slice it?

He drew back just before the attorney stepped back into the room, and drank another sip of coffee before he smiled in greeting. The assistant still had the same sour look on her face, but Pierce found himself disliking her a little less. His smile brightened. Not too much; he was getting divorced, after all. ‘Shall we get back to it?’

***

He was hunting with Alice. They didn’t have guns, but he understood that wasn’t a problem. He walked behind her, watching her dark hair bounce on her shoulders, and they followed the deer trail down to a lake shore. She turned to him and nodded, and he looked down at the shape lying halfway out of the water. He couldn’t tell if it was wrapped in plastic or some kind of sheer fabric, but he could see the dead flesh inside, blue and grey with exposure.

It felt very peaceful.

The phone scattered his dream, then his sleep. He sat up and turned the light on. A stray half-thought: this was going to wake Laura up. He picked up the handset.

‘Hello?’

‘Were you sleeping?’

Nick. Pierce sat up on his pillows and reached for his reading glasses. ‘No. No, go ahead.’ 

‘I know you were sleeping,’ Nick said. His voice was as alert as ever, but Pierce didn’t think he’d ever heard it sound sleepy or slurred, not even in the hospital after Nick had lost the eye. On some level he was sure Nick never slept. He just rolled his chair into a quiet corner at the Triskelion and powered down for the night. ‘But I also know that if I ring you at 2 am, you want to hear what I have to say.’

‘You know me too well, Nick.’ Milky light seeped in through the curtains and Pierce could see a faint reflection of himself on the television screen in the bedroom. The TV set had been Laura’s idea. He supposed he could get rid of it now. He supposed he could get rid of the house too, find a smaller place. He rattled inside this one like a dry pea in a shell. He just had to make sure Abby’s bedroom could be moved to the new place. Something to think about.

‘Sorry to hear about you and Laura splitting up.’

Pierce said nothing for a second, then launched into the usual litany. He could probably say it in his sleep by now. ‘Thanks, Nick. Can’t say it wasn’t hard, but it was for the best. Sometimes things just don’t work out. And the girls are fine, that’s what really matters.’

There was a soft rustle on the line. ‘You ever get tired of saying that?’

He couldn’t swallow a half-hearted chuckle. ‘Probably right after the first time I said it. You didn’t ring to talk about my marital problems, Nick.’

‘Operation Razorback.’

If there were any threads of sleep still clinging to him, that brushed them away. ‘You heard.’

‘I heard.’ There was a pause. Pierce heard a siren in the distance, pulling away. ‘The extraction went ahead, but by the time we got there our people were already dead.’

‘I see.’

‘Does it end, Al?’ He still sounded like he always did, but this time there were thorns under the surface.

‘Have you been drinking?’

‘It doesn’t count if everything is still clear.’

Neither of them spoke for a while. Pierce watched the digits change in his clock radio.

‘I’ve been Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. for three years and sometimes it already feels like three centuries. Do you ever get tired of it? Of feeling like you’re bailing out a sinking ship? I don’t mind being hated for it. I just wish I could be hated for succeeding.’

‘You’re the one who taught me how to get results, Nick. And I—’ He trailed off. He could pick out all the faint electronic noises in the room: the aural snow of the telephone line, the soft hum of the radio, even—he was sure—the crackle of electric wires deep in the walls. The house was too big and too empty; hollowed out. When he spoke again, he was sure he sounded as tired as Nick felt. ‘You know, I have this thought sometimes: if it weren’t for you…’

‘… I wouldn’t have anyone in the world who really understood me. I know.’ A pause. ‘Long time since Bogotá, Al.’

‘Longer still since Phnom Penh.’

There was a pool of silence, then a soft clink of glass on the other end of the line. Nick taking another sip, maybe. When he spoke again his voice was stone-cold sober. ‘I think someone in S.H.I.E.L.D. is dirty.’

‘I thought you already knew the names of everyone dirty in S.H.I.E.L.D.’

‘I do. Sometimes I even let them know I know.’ That could have been a joke. It was hard to tell, with Nick. ‘This is something else. Someone I can’t see.’

‘I take it you’re calling me on a secure line.’

Nick let out a curt noise of disapproval, presumably at the idea that he could ever do otherwise.

‘Who else knows?’ Pierce asked.

‘Just the two of us.’

‘Well, I can vouch for everyone in the Council.’

Pierce could practically hear Nick’s eyebrow arch. ‘Can you?’

The clock’s digits slipped from 2:03 to 2:04. ‘No. No, I can’t.’

‘I’ve got to go.’ There was a rustle on the other end of the line. ‘You’ll keep a tight lid on this.’ It wasn’t a question, just an observation.

‘You’ve got something planned.’ That wasn’t a question either.

‘Unless you’ve got something in your back pocket.’

‘Sure. I’ve got the Winter Soldier stashed in a freezer,’ Pierce said, deadpan. ‘Just let me know who he needs to get rid of.’

Nick waited a few seconds before answering. ‘You see, that’s just the sort of thing that gives me trust issues. When I bought my freezer it only came with Jimmy Hoffa’s body.’

***

It was a little past 3 am when Pierce made it to the vault, and there were only two scientists and one guard on duty. The thinnest of skeleton crews, only around in case the cryo-tube or the asset malfunctioned. They weren’t expecting him, but it wasn’t the first time he had done this.

He looked at the cryo-tube’s frost-rimmed window. He did this, sometimes, just come to the vault without a mission for the asset. He would do what he did now, dismiss everyone so he’d be alone with the asset, pull up a folding chair and sit where he could see the asset’s face. After a while he’d forget about the hardness of the metal seat, the uncomfortable cold in the room, the ozone smell coming from the machines. It was comforting. He spent his days surrounded by talk, and in his death-sleep the asset never made a sound.

Sometimes he was comforting awake, too, like sitting next to a large and warm animal. There was a solidity to the asset. He was incapable of listening for politeness’ sake, of making non-committal noises to pretend he was caring or paying attention, of being too busy thinking about what he was going to say next. You could tell him a secret, and he would take it to his grave.

Pierce stood up and stepped to the cryo-tube, placed his hand on the glass and leaned in until he was close enough to see the hint of stubble on the asset’s jaw, the lace of ice on his eyelashes. Once in a while some place deep in Pierce’s mind startled at the fact that he was watching someone who wasn’t dead and yet was also not breathing or moving, but he managed to push it aside.

What was it like, this ice sleep? What was it like, to wake up from it? Pierce knew it could be painful—once or twice it had been necessary to outright make it so—but he wondered if there were dreams. Just shapes, maybe, flashes in the dark.

It was the asset’s fault, Pierce knew. The divorce, talking to Alice only once a week and seeing her only twice a year. He hadn’t done it deliberately, of course, but he had done it nonetheless: all those times when Pierce was out of the house to see the asset. Laura must have got it into her head that he had a mistress. She must have told Alice too.

It didn’t matter, he realised. It didn’t matter that sometimes—too many times—the asset was sullen, or stubborn, or disobedient. He’d been shorn of pretence, guile, fear. Humankind perfected, freed from the burden of the future and the weight of the past, from all the rotting trappings of civilisation and its delusions of morality. Pierce couldn’t think of anything more liberating. Just doing, without having to be.

He let his fingers slide down the bitingly cold glass.

He didn’t want to lose the asset. The thought dropped like a tomb lid, sudden and final. The asset was a weapon, and one day, when the new order began, there would be no more need for weapons. A memory floated up: Alice, soon after being born, red and squalling. He hadn’t really believed that such a tiny, fragile creature could possibly remain alive, and sometimes he had sneaked into the nursery room at night to watch her, as though only his presence and vigilance could keep her breathing.

He went out to the prep room, where the one remaining scientist sat in front of a bank of monitors and control panels. He nearly upended a bag of gummy bears getting to his feet as Pierce entered the room. The other scientist had decamped to parts uncertain.

‘I want the asset woken up,’ Pierce said. ‘Get whoever you need to get if you can’t do it on your own.’

‘Yes, sir,’ the man said. ‘Do we need a mission brief?’

‘No. There isn’t one.’

The scientist opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to think better of it. ‘I’ll get right on it.’

While the scientist went to make his calls, Pierce took a small key from his pocket, slid it into a slot in the back of the bank of instruments, and twisted. On the first turn, a set of machines went on standby. On the second turn, they powered down entirely.

The power grid, the cryo-tube, all the machines monitoring the asset were still working perfectly. Their output was simply no longer being recorded. For the moment, all the devices watching the asset had been rendered blind.

He put the key back in his pocket.

When the time came, Pierce wanted to keep the asset. But if he couldn’t, he wanted to be the one to do what would need to be done. He would be kind. He would be gentle. He would make sure the asset would feel no pain when Pierce drove the needle or the knife into his flesh. If there were whimpers, he would soothe them. If there were tears, he would wipe them away. He would make sure the last thing the asset saw was his face.

And afterwards, he would grieve. Afterwards, and always, he would think that the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life was the asset sleeping under glass, his flesh going from brittle and cold to warm and alive when he was woken up, like the happy ending to a fairy tale.

He understood now.

‘We’ll be ready to wake him up in about twenty minutes,’ the scientist told him.

He loved the asset.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bit with the body in the plastic bag in Pierce’s dream was inspired by _Twin Peaks_. The line “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have anyone in the world who really understood me” is lifted from a bit in the comics in which Bucky tells Steve that if it weren’t for him, Steve wouldn’t have anyone in the world who really understands him. Because obviously my goal in life is to take everything that is positive in the movies and the comics and come up with some horrific and twisted mirror image. (So, keeping to the spirit of the MCU Winter Soldier plot line, then. /ba-dum-tish) Speaking of twisted, I really can’t help but think of Pierce’s plot with Fury in CA:TWS as the implosion of a (metaphoric) marriage, a la Amy and Nick Dunne from _Gone Girl_. (If Amy and Nick Dunne had met in a S.H.I.E.L.D. outpost during the Cambodian Civil War.) So I do think Pierce is being genuine in everything he says to Nick Fury, for a horrific narcissist’s value of genuine. Which of course would make Bucky… I guess these three put the _nuclear_ in nuclear family, amirite?? (Yes, I am a terrible person.)


	23. 1987-1988

**9.**

**1987-1988**

Kashmir.

***

London.

***

Cluj. 


	24. 1988

**10.**

**1988**

As always, the tightness in her midsection started as soon the car drove past the bank of traffic lights five blocks away from the rotunda building.

After two years, all this should cause as much apprehension as signing her name, but here they were. She wondered if Jules felt the same way, but she probably didn’t.

‘I’m thinking of getting a new car,’ Barbara said as she squeezed her Ford Escort into a small space in the underground car park, then managed to natter on about mileage all the way to the vault. It made it easier, the small talk. Greased the way. ‘What kind of mileage does yours get?’

‘Terrible. Why do you think I carpool?’

It got easier still once they both slid their keys into the slots. You could just focus on the script you had to follow. ‘Dr Barbara Gerber, entry at nine forty-five a.m.,’ she said to the spinning wheels of the locked recorder in one of the walls.

‘Dr Juliana Garcia, confirming entry at nine forty-five a.m.’

There were hand-over procedures to go through, validation codes to enter. She said hello to Mike and Josh, who were already at their bank of monitors, and waved goodbye to Jules as she went to her usual post even deeper in the basement, where she sat surrounded by neurological data and listened to mix-tapes by English musicians who’d killed themselves.

There wasn’t much chatter after that. There never was. Once the vault door slid shut it was like being inside the belly of some huge animal, a blanket of silence punctuated only by the hum of the machines.

It was the air, she was sure. It never felt right. It wasn’t the smell. It was the absence of windows, she supposed, the way sound bounced off the walls. _Subterranean_ , that was the right word. It felt exactly like it sounded.

‘Just routine monitoring today, guys?’ Barbara said.

‘Yeah. If we’re lucky,’ Mike said, one eye on the screens, the other on the coils of magnetic tape he was spooling back into a cassette with the aid of a ballpoint pen.

She stepped to the back of the room to make herself a cup of coffee. Throughout the years the teams working here had assembled a collection of colourful mugs, including her _Garfield_ one. She supposed it was to make the place feel a bit cosier, but in between the fluorescent lights, the enormous vault door, and the wall of safety deposit boxes off to one side, it felt like hanging tinsel in a morgue.

The guy sitting on a chair with a rifle at his side probably didn’t help.

She swallowed. ‘Hey.’ She didn’t know his name and she wasn’t supposed to. The guys who came in from the tactical teams always did so under strict anonymity.

‘Hey,’ he said, not looking up from his magazine. His flak jacket didn’t do much to cover up the bulges of muscles and the butt of a handgun.

And if _he_ wanted to, _he_ could go through the armed guard like a tank through wet tissue.

She took a big sip of her coffee. It was bad, and bitter, even with all the sugar, and it was warm rather than hot. But it was better than going into the other room with nothing.

Juliana was so lucky. She almost never had to look at _him_.

Captain Cool. Most of them called him Captain Cool. She went through the nicknames in her head as she began the routine of checking the cryo-tube readings. Frosty. Ice Pops. Deathsicle. Mr Freeze, like some comic book villain.

She checked temperature readings, vitals, making sure he hadn’t died-died or started defrosting inside the tube. This close, she could smell the faint odour of ozone coming from the machines, and she didn’t have to look at the glass window on the tube. The engines rumbled away, the only noise in the room aside from the squeak of her soles on the floor. She glanced at the brain activity readout, showing occasional bursts of alien patterns even in deep freeze. It was just noise, mostly. Jules had compared it to the snow on a TV screen tuned to static.

Once there had been a sudden spike, and Barbara had startled so hard she’d nearly fallen on her butt.

The room was cold, but she knew that wasn’t what made her skin prickle with goosebumps, her kidneys feel like little ice lumps in her lower back. That was all _him_. Captain Cool. Only the nicknames didn’t help. In the past two years she’d seen her share of things, all the stuff Captain Cool did to the team when something inside his brain misfired: cuts, bruises, black eyes, concussions. Once a grenade had ripped a hole in him and he’d still been able to give someone a shattered collarbone and a shredded spleen.

She caught a glimpse of the glass panel as she stepped away, and stopped. A chill darted down her spine.

 _Stupid_ , she told herself. _You’re being stupid_. It was just like working with a lion, or a crocodile, or a deadly virus. An anatomy class cadaver that had been reanimated and didn’t rot.

Once one of his eyes had opened inside the cryo-tube. It was normal, she knew, the eyelids could retract like that. He’d looked like he was giving the room an unblinking, accusing stare until they slid the lid shut again so the eye wouldn’t be damaged.

Once a routine resus had gone wrong. Halfway through, just after he’d come out of the warming tank, his heart rate had stopped climbing, flattened, then plunged to nothing. She’d expected to panic. Instead she’d managed to adjust the dosages of her compounds that stimulated blood circulation and pacemaker cell activity while the doctor intubated him and performed chest compressions. At some point she’d heard a loud crack, and fumbled one of the needles. Later she’d smoked a furtive cigarette in the parking garage, thinking of what Mr Pierce would have said if Captain Cool—no, the asset, you had to call him the asset—had died. It was only afterwards that she realised that the noise she’d heard had been ribs cracking; _he_ gave no signs of discomfort or pain once he was fully conscious. And even later still, she saw the ribs had healed much faster than anything human could manage. The bruising on his chest had faded in a matter of hours, like a spoonful of ink in a tub of water.

She heard the phone ring in the prep room, and by the time she got there, Josh was already putting the handset down. ‘Pierce wants him ready in two hours’ time.’

They had him ready in one and a half. One day, Barbara thought as she prepared the drugs that would ready his brain for conditioning, she would be doing all this on auto-pilot. 

The conditioning itself was one of the easiest tasks. Captain Cool was hooked up to machines, the kind that covered his face, and those did most of the work. You didn’t have to look at it at all.

When things went well.

The prep work before, she disliked.

She disliked having to touch _him_. It was the scent, maybe, that chemical smell from cryo and the resus still clinging to him. His skin even looked slippery. It was the mechanical arm, a robot part sewn to his flesh. Or maybe the fact that he just sat there, not moving, neither helping nor hindering, staring straight ahead without seeing, stringy hair hanging down like seaweed. Some of the hair stuck to his cheek and one of his eyes, but he didn’t push it out of the way, didn’t even blink. She could feel his breathing, even, like some mechanism inside a wax figure, and when she stuck the leads to his chest, she felt a flutter of his heart even through the latex gloves, and had to stop herself from shuddering.

She pulled back, sucked the paralytic into the syringe, and pushed any air bubbles out.

His right hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. She bit down a scream and almost dropped the syringe.

He was so fast she hadn’t even seen his hand move.

Her lips parted, soundless. The syringe remained clutched in the fingers of her right hand, the knuckles so white she was sure she was going to crack the plastic in half. _Where are the guards?_ The thought came from very far away. Why wasn’t anyone seeing this? Her heart was thudding loud enough for everyone to notice.

 _He_ didn’t hurt her. He just turned his face towards her.

It wasn’t blank. For once, his face wasn’t blank. Or ice-cold. It had always been ice-cold whenever she caught his eye.

Instead he just looked wrung out.

He could toss her across the room if he wanted to. Yank her to him so fast that by the time the first bullet hit his flesh or a million volts raced up the mechanical arm, he would have already snapped her neck or crushed her windpipe.

Instead he looked at her like he expected her to hurt him and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

‘I. Umm,’ she said.

 _Why are you talking to him?_ The thought-voice again, far-off and disdainful.

‘I have to inject this.’ She looked at the needle. It was better than looking at him. ‘In, er, it goes in your eyes. But… it doesn’t really hurt?’

_You’re reassuring the defrosted dead guy who kills people. A new career high point._

He released her. Her hand fell back on her hip. She could still feel the weight of him on her wrist, the cold seeping through her skin.

He stared straight ahead again, empty.

She lifted the syringe, and had to use all her strength to stop the needle from shaking.

***

‘What should I do with you?’

Barbara tried to focus on the tray where she was preparing the drip that’d knock _him_ out, but she couldn’t help but look at Mr Pierce from under her eyelashes. He stood over _him_ , sounding calm, a little indulgent.

‘Wiped,’ _he_ said. The amount of benzos and GABA modulators he was getting in the IV drip would have knocked out a horse, but his voice was only slightly slurry. ‘I need to be wiped.’

‘That’s right, you do.’

She looked up. Mr Pierce turned around and shook his head almost imperceptibly.

She returned the infusion bag to the tray. They weren’t going to need it.

When the screams started, Mike slipped his headphones on.

***

Two hours after the conscious wipe, she and Jules sat at the all-night diner a few streets away from the bank. Barbara’s hands shook a little when she wasn’t handling the cutlery or her glass of sweet tea. Her thoughts shook too. She would like them to stop.

‘Why did you join Hydra?’

She hadn’t really meant to ask the question, hadn’t even felt the words form on her tongue. They’d just—

 _like what_ he _said to_

—slipped out.

Jules stilled halfway through dipping a french fry in ketchup. ‘A little louder.’ Jules always sounded like a monotone ashtray, but after two years Barbara could read the note of irritation in her voice. ‘I don’t think that guy at the back heard you.’

‘Yeah?’ Barbara raised her voice a little. She knew she was being childish, but she couldn’t help it. ‘Hydra! Hydra! Hydra alert!’ A man in a baseball cap looked vaguely in their direction as he turned a newspaper page, but none of the night owls in the diner seemed to even notice the two of them were there. ‘Nobody cares.’

Jules popped the fry into her mouth. ‘Fine. Nobody cares.’ She was always a little grumpy after she had to review the data from a wipe. ‘Three years ago I was trying to get onto a tenure-track job.’ She paused to lick a spot of grease and salt off her thumb. ‘You know Taylor was my PhD supervisor, right?’

Barbara nodded. If they’d been at school together, Barbara would have been the kid filling notebooks with panicked scribbles to keep up with the teacher, and Jules would have been the kid who always looked cool as a cucumber and aced every test despite never taking any notes.

‘I was doing a postdoc.’

‘That sounds—’

‘It sucked.’ Her tone was unreadable again. ‘This one time I went into my department head’s office while he was on the phone. He didn’t look up, just told me to come empty the wastebaskets later.’

Barbara chuckled, more from the tension coiling in her shoulders since the bank than anything else, then flushed and looked down at the eggs on her plate when Jules didn’t join in.

‘Not too long after that I got a letter from S.H.I.E.L.D. mentioning one of my papers. It said someone as exceptional as me deserved to have her talents recognised. How’s that for a recruitment pitch?’ Her throaty voice played it as a joke, but the quote from the letter was too specific to have been anything but memorised. ‘The letter came from S.H.I.E.L.D., but really it came from a circle. And that was it. If I have to be on a team, I’d rather be on the winning one.’

‘So…’ Barbara said after a little while, just to fill the empty space in the conversation. The other people in the diner weren’t talking much. Most of the noise came from the clinking of cutlery and a radio somewhere in the kitchen.

‘You ladies need anything?’ a waitress asked them. After she’d walked away, ponytail bouncing behind her, Jules spoke again.

‘How about you? How did you join?’

Barbara looked at her. Jules’s face was unreadable again, and the omelette felt suddenly leaden in Barbara’s stomach. Was the other woman testing her loyalty? Did she think that was what Barbara was doing? There were no second thoughts in Hydra. There was no such a thing as a lapsed member.

There were no second chances either. She had known that all along, but it had never quite seemed real.

Barbara took a gulp of her tea and cleared her throat. ‘I’d been in S.H.I.E.L.D. for two years. My team leader turned out to be in a circle.’

It had been that simple.

It had been that complicated.

He’d listened to her worrying, which was something she’d done all the time back then. She’d worried about mushroom clouds, and her pension, and flint-eyed men who planted bombs, and the ozone layer, and civil wars she saw on TV, and the sex plague that had shown up during the second year of her PhD. Until then the fear had gone nowhere, just curdled in the back of her mind. Then Ben had joked about all those useless politicians up in the Hill, and then he had half-joked about there being a better way, and after a while he wasn’t joking at all.

She had recoiled, at first. She’d learned the history back in high school, more or less. But Ben had explained how things really were, outside the lies on two or three pages on a schoolbook. Hydra wasn’t about war, it was about peace. It wasn’t about a dictatorship, it was about having a purpose. It wasn’t about a master race or a master nation, it was about the people of the future, and in the future there would be no borders and no flags. The people of the future would be a universal race, bred to greatness by inheriting greatness from wherever it was to be found. The only things culled would be the weaknesses and the flaws holding us back. A new and final stage in human history.

There was a tomorrow with Hydra. There was a place you were going, a new world about to be born.

And that always meant some blood, some pain.

She understood that. She understood that there were enemies and there was only one way to deal with them. She understood there would be one last struggle, that there would have to be sacrifice.

Only—

‘Do you ever… find it kinda weird?’

Well, there it was. The cat was out of the bag. No point in trying to stuff it back.

She felt almost relieved.

Jules finished another fry. ‘What’s weird?’

‘The stuff we do to Captain Co—I mean the asset.’

She wanted to look down at her plate, but Jules’s eyes were distracted. ‘You mean the super-strength thing?’

‘No,’ Barbara said. ‘It’s just…’

_What? What is it?_

‘We never get any complaints,’ she finished. It was a dumb joke and they both knew it. Neither of them laughed. ‘I guess it’s no big deal.’

She knew it wasn’t. Sure, some of the things they did to him were painful, or strange, or dangerous, but that didn’t make them wrong. You couldn’t explain surgery to a dog or a child either, but you still carried it out.

Only it was different when you had to see everything up close.

That was it. Thinking it made it coalesce, like one of those Magic Eye pictures once you’d looked at it enough.

You kept wondering about how real _he_ was. How much he thought. How much he felt. What kind of things were inside his head, where Jules’s data couldn’t see.

‘It just makes you wonder, you know?’ Barbara said, punctuating it with a shrug to make it appear casual. ‘He looks just like a person.’

Jules let out a little snort. ‘Sure. When it happens to someone like him, now it’s a tragedy.’ Barbara had no idea what she meant, but she was already talking again. ‘He’s not a person. I don’t know what kind of readings you guys get upstairs, but I see the brain data. Trust me on this.’

She didn’t need to look at the brain scans to know Jules was right, didn’t even need to think back to the readings she took and studied, values so off the charts new charts had been assembled to evaluate them. All she needed to do was remember bruises fading like ink in water. People lying in bed with their throats slit. _Him_ staring straight ahead with an empty husk look while Mr Pierce talked to him.

His hand around her wrist.

Besides, even if he were a person, so what? So what? People died at Hydra’s hands. Even more would die in the final struggle. People died every day. Crossing the street. Lying in their beds. At least when they did it, it was _necessary_.

She thought back to Mike slipping his headphones on, staring at his screens so he didn’t have to watch.

***

It was several months before they had to wake up the asset for a mission again.

Sometimes it felt shorter. She had her work—for S.H.I.E.L.D., or was it Hydra?—long days in the lab, longer days still doing paperwork or looking at the glow of a computer monitor. The days grew longer, then shorter again. She tried not to look at her calendar, where she’d marked her scheduled days monitoring _him_ with little ballpoint pen stars.

Sometimes it felt longer. She would wake up from strange and sticky dreams and lie on her bed, trying to brush away the little thorn in the back of her mind by watching late-night TV. It didn’t help; an old horror movie would always show up. _I Walked With a Zombie. Eyes Without a Face. The Invisible Man_. She would let them drone away on the TV set like white noise and stare at the ceiling, feeling the house around her settle, or perhaps moan.

She noticed all kinds of things now, like a message transmitted in a code only she could read. A display of WWII books in a shop window. Stars hung from trees. A woman on the TV called Barnes. Even a kid, once, sitting on a park bench near the Lincoln Memorial and reading an old Captain America comic. Hadn’t those things gone out of print in the 60s for reason of everybody realising how much they sucked?

She wasn’t stupid. She knew why she was noticing those things. _His_ past life was a bit of an unspoken joke for everyone who put in shifts at the vault. If you weren’t smart enough to figure it out on your own, you weren’t smart enough to work there.

It wasn’t something she’d ever thought about much.

_What if it’s wrong?_

She thought this, instead, like a cough she couldn’t shake. In the shower, in the lab looking at her cell cultures, in a traffic jam hazy with heat.

Well, it couldn’t be too wrong. They all did worse things. S.H.I.E.L.D., the government. When she’d been recruited, she’d been working on something that could bury you alive in your own body, and now they were working on reviving the dead. And then there were the coups, the invasions, the secret deals. At least Hydra did what it did for the sake of the world, not just one country, or one man.

It was just _seeing_ it that was hard. Everybody knew that. It was hard even knowing it was right.

It _was_ right.

Wasn’t it?

_What if it’s wrong?_

‘Do you understand me?’ She was prepping _him_ again. Everyone else went about their business. They hadn’t heard her whisper.

 _He_ didn’t glance at her, but his brow furrowed, just a little. He had heard her.

She kept going through the protocol, talking in a barely audible monotone. ‘Do you… mind this? What happens here? Do you want this?’

There was no answer. He remained motionless, his face blank and slack again.

‘If you want,’ she said. ‘I could… do something. Maybe. Change things. If it would… help.’

She turned to the trolley. When she glanced at him again, he was looking at her. Her stomach knotted up. He was no longer blank. Instead he was wearing an expression of pure, icy rage. If his stare were as deadly as the rest of him, she’d be lying bloodless on the floor.

She turned away, mumbled to the team that she needed the bathroom. Her throat was too dry. She could barely get the words out.

But he’d understood her, she thought after she splashed some water on her face. She looked at herself in the square of mirror bolted to the wall. She knew he had understood her.

‘Dr Gerber.’

It was a few hours later and she was gathering up her things before she left. She nearly dropped her scarf, fumbled for it, turned around.

It was Mr Pierce.

‘Sir,’ she squeaked, then coughed.

He didn’t look angry. He almost never did, only disappointed, sometimes, even when he was talking to _him_.

(One time he had talked to _him_ behind a closed door and Barbara had heard his voice rise, but only a little, and when Mr Pierce had stepped out he had been folding a blood-spotted handkerchief.)

Right now, there was a faint smile on his lips. ‘See you soon.’

‘I—’

She could stop now. Say goodbye and slip on her coat and go back to where there were streets and people and the Capitol dome off in the distance, instead of linoleum and concrete walls and the smell of formaldehyde and a face under ice.

‘Have you been working with the asset long, Mr Pierce?’ she said instead. Inane, she knew, but there was something in the way Pierce looked at you and the way he stood that made you want to tell him things.

‘Some time, yes. Why, is there anything I should know about?’ His tone was casual. She would tell him everything and he would nod once in understanding, then forgive her.

‘Does he… feel things?’

_Wow. A real winner there._

Pierce’s expression didn’t change, though. It was just that his eyes remained focused on her while he crossed his arms over his chest. Did he blink? ‘Do you like your post, Dr Gerber?’ he said, after what felt like an eternity.

Her palms felt sweaty. ‘I—I’m happy to do whatever Hydra requires of me.’

A little flicker of unhappiness in his expression. ‘Do you like your post?’ he repeated. He sounded like a father talking to a child who had, without warning, misbehaved.

‘Sure. I mean. I don’t think—’

‘I think loyalty is better than blind obedience. Don’t you think so, Dr Gerber?’ He was calm, even a little casual. They might be having a chat over some beers.

There was a small hard stone in her throat. ‘Yes.’

‘I like my people to be where they fit best. So if you are unhappy with this assignment… it can be terminated.’ He sounded a little regretful, but not unduly so. ‘It’d be no work at all.’

She felt the nape of her neck cool. ‘I enjoy my work.’

He nodded, once, seemingly to himself. ‘I hope you realise the importance of what we’re doing here. How much the asset matters. What we accomplish with him.’

‘Of course, sir. It’s—ah, it’s an honour.’

The corners of his eyes crinkled a little at that. He seemed to find it amusing. ‘Is it?’

‘I joined Hydra because we are right,’ she ended up saying, and knew straight away she’d said the wrong thing.

‘Thank you, Dr Gerber,’ he said after a few seconds. ‘Enjoy your weekend.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ she muttered, and hurriedly wrapped her scarf around her neck as she turned away.

‘Dr Gerber.’

She stopped. Her heart drummed away in her chest. She didn’t dare turn around. ‘Sir?’

‘Hail Hydra.’

‘Yes, sir. Hail Hydra.’

***

It took two weeks for her to be sure she was in serious trouble.

***

It wasn’t until a quarter to seven that she really started wondering if someone was following her, but by five o’clock she had already grown nervous enough to feel queasy, and by six she had to keep walking around the exhibit to stop herself from fidgeting.

She hadn’t been nervous when she’d sent that electronic memo to Director Fury. She had just typed it, her fingers moving while she did little more than watch. She’d finished it, sent it through the secure network, then stared at the computer terminal until the screensaver—now in colour, for added entertainment value—showed up.

Her nerves fizzled. She started another circuit around the exhibit hall and stopped to take a sip at one of the water fountains. She had asked the Director to meet her at the Captain America exhibit in the Smithsonian at 6:30pm and it was now twenty past six. He wasn’t going to show up. How many messages did Director Fury get, all proclaiming they had something important to discuss with him? How many messages did he get a day? Dozens? Hundreds? Had he even read it at all? His secretary had probably printed it out and it was still sitting in the middle of a two-inch-thick pile.

He was going to show up. He was going to stare at her, even with the eye behind the patch, and she would forget all about the little cover story she had rehearsed and which was growing flimsier and flimsier by the minute, and the word Hydra would crawl out of her lips. No, that wouldn’t be necessary. He would read it in her thoughts. Then she would be whisked off to a detention facility in an undisclosed location.

Maybe they would let her see sunlight, once in a while.

Maybe he was Hydra himself.

No sunlight.

She had seen that man in the grey shirt before, the one pretending to read one of the posters.

(She had seen plenty of recurring faces in the past two weeks, she was sure. Strange clicks in her phone line.)

No, his shirt was blue. It was a different guy. She was just being stupid.

But as closing time approached, the crowd, not big to start with, was growing thinner and thinner. Soon she would be out in the open. Why had she picked this, of all places?

She glanced at the mural out of the corner of her eye. She could see—

_he’s looking at me_

— _his_ face. He’d had one, before, not just wax-figure flesh. A name. She had known all that going in, and for two years it had made no difference, but maybe now it would stop her from bolting. Just like those dates engraved on a plaque, 1917-1945. Her gaze drifted towards them.

Her blood turned to ice.

The man in the grey shirt was standing a little out of sight, but it was him. She slipped her hands into her coat’s pockets and started to walk. Her legs felt like jelly at first, but soon she had to stop herself from breaking into a run. She zig-zagged across the museum, up and down flights of stairs, and finally made it out and to the place where she’d parked her car, hoping it had been enough to shake him. She fumbled with her keys, managed to get in, and took several breaths before she started the car and pulled out of her parking spot.

The sun had already begun to set, but there was still enough light for her to see the black car pulling out at the same time, a few spots behind her.

Deep breaths. Deep breaths. She forced herself to look at the tarmac in front of her car until the strain in her temples was too much, then let herself glance at the rearview mirror. There was no black car. The cars behind her drifted in and out of other streets, unaware and uncaring. Nobody was following her.

And the car had been midnight blue, not black.

It hadn’t even pulled out at the same time as she had, she’d just mixed the two things together in her mind.

Even so she took the most complicated route possible back to her house, full of loops and detours. When she arrived it was two hours later, full dark. One of her neighbours had already put a witch doll outside, above the pumpkins. In the gloomy light of the street lamps, it looked like a hanged body.

She waited for a few moments in the safety of the garage before she stepped inside the house. Nothing bad could happen to you in a room that smelled a little of motor oil and where she’d piled up her old college textbooks and scuba equipment she’d only used once.

The first thing she heard when she stepped inside the house was a voice. Her bladder was suddenly cold and hot inside her, until she realised it was only the droning of the downstairs TV set. She had forgotten to turn it off that morning. She switched it off now, halfway through a traffic report, and stared for a few seconds at the dark shape of her reflection on the screen before she examined every room. Everything was as she left it, she was sure. Doors locked, windows bolted. She closed all the curtains, opened the closets, even peered under the bed. Someone had slipped a bunch of leaflets through the mail slot on the front door and they were lying on the rug below it. That was reassuring, just a little: you couldn’t be too scared when you were looking at junk mail.

_Calm down._

She went into her living room and opened the curtains a fraction so she could peer out.

The black car was back.

It was parked on the other side of the street, in the shadowy spot between two street lamps. She was sure she could even see the driver, a more solid shade, staring at her.

_It’s a different car._

Since when was she an expert on cars? She let the curtains drop shut again. There was no driver, that had just been her imagination, but she hadn’t imagined the car. She backed away into the kitchen, eyes on the window as though the driver might burst in at any moment, then grabbed the phone and pressed 9.

Her finger hovered above the 1.

_God, this is stupid._

She slammed the handset back on its cradle on the wall.

What was she going to tell the police?

A week after she had joined Hydra, she had received an envelope containing her two outstanding parking tickets, now cancelled, and a note saying only _you’re welcome_.

(Those clicking sounds on the line.)

The lights went out.

She tried both light switches. Nothing, of course, but she’d already known that.

She wasn’t scared. She just felt very cold. The curtains in the kitchen windows were almost sheer, so she could see enough to open the drawer where she kept a flashlight. She flicked the switch on, off, on again. Nothing.

The batteries were dead.

She glanced at the backyard, just a tangle of—

_someone watching_

—shadows, and grabbed the phone again.

There was no dial tone when she pressed the handset to her ear. The line was dead.

_The car._

If she made it to the garage, she could bolt the door behind her and maybe have enough time to drive away. She went out into the corridor, where it was full dark and she had to guide herself by touch. It was her house. She knew it. She’d walked into the garage so often she could do it in her sleep…

A creak. She froze. Her lips parted. _It’s only the house. It’s only the house._ But it wasn’t. An animal terror gripped her.

There was _something_ in the corridor with her.

She could _sense_ it, making her skin ripple with goosebumps and the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

She ran. No thought now. She bumped into walls, cracked her knee on a side table. No car, no garage. Her body was in charge now, pulling her to where it felt safe. Behind the sofa, maybe, under the covers.

The shape was waiting for her on the stairs. She tried to turn around, lost her footing, and hit the wall, then the steps.

‘Please.’

He grabbed her hair and yanked her up, his grip a steel trap pulling on her scalp. She didn’t feel any pain.

‘Don’t—don’t do—’ She kicked at him, but there was no point. One of her shoes landed on the floor below with a soft thud. This close she could see the black hollow where his face should be. ‘I tried to help you! I tried to—’

His grip slackened a little and she tried to squirm away, but it was too late, it had always been too late. She hadn’t been sure if he was a person or a machine.

It had never occurred to her that she was wrong about both and he was a monster.

She tried to scream, but she didn’t even have time to get a whimper out before his metal hand covered her face and a hot rain of blood gushed from her slashed throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More meta teal deering ahead, once again feel free to skip: without getting too boring and self-involved here, like Garcia, I am a brown woman in the sciences. Also, I am Jewish, a lesbian, and have significant disabilities, which means I am, like, one identical twin away from winning the Nonconsensual Human Experimentation Bingo (I hear the prizes are really terrible, though). So pretty much everything in this chapter is Relevant to My Interests. Also, also, that bit about Hydra’s racial ideology? I didn’t make it up, this was actually a part of the RL fascist ideology quite a few of my relatives had to live under at some point, only with added eugenics. We know Hydra isn’t whites-only in either the MCU or the comics (hence Pierce wondering about recruiting Nick Fury back in chapter 7), but as it turns out fascism is pretty elastic and can mould its intrinsic racism into all kinds of different shapes depending on social context. Also, also, also, CA:TWS’s political commentary is really much cleverer and on-point than you’d really expect from a super-hero movie, or indeed any kind of mainstream movie tbh, so there’s really a lot I tried to engage with and pack into this chapter. I won’t bore you with it, and I assume I’d drown in pretentiousness and dweebery if I were to link to Umberto Eco’s _Ur Fascism_ essay. ([Anyway, here’s the link!](http://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf) ;) (pdf)) So let’s just say that just like one can smile and be charismatic and popular and actually be a Horrible Nightmare of a Human Being, one can also be a not wholly unsympathetic awkward nerd and be a willing member of a fascist organisation. Unfortunately, there’s no twirling moustaches (or even felt goatees) to tip you off… /tl;dr On a lighter note, I also crammed more horror movie references into this chapter than I can possibly count. And yes, the last scene is set around Halloween…
> 
> On an actually lighter note, I feel compelled to explain the thing with the cassette and the pen for those of you who didn’t live through the 80s: back in the Mesozoic, when music (before we killed it with home taping, of course) came in audio cassettes, sometimes the cassette would vomit these big tangles of magnetic tape. So we’d stick a pencil or a pen, basically anything that could get enough traction, in one of the holes in the middle of those plastic reels holding the tape, and carefully turn it until the tape was back in the cassette. And hopefully there weren’t any tears in the tape and you’d managed to smooth out any kinks, at least enough to wonder why you were listening to Flock of Seagulls in the first place. Those were dark times.


	25. 1988

**11.**

**1988**

Pierce slept lightly, and the bathroom was next to his bedroom. The sound of running water woke him. He glanced at the radio clock and went from drowsy to alert in one cold second. It was almost two in the morning. Abby wouldn’t be in that bathroom, and there was no one else in the house. He got up in silence, took his S&W from its case, loaded it, and edged towards the bathroom door, which was ajar. The only light inside was a dim haze from the moon and the city, but even so he could see a large, shadowy shape. He raised his gun.

He was looking at the asset, he realised. Pierce could recognise him anywhere, even with the goggles and the mask, even in the dark. He lowered the gun, nudged the door open and stepped into the bathroom. ‘What are you doing here?’ he said in an angry whisper.

The asset didn’t answer. There was only the murmur of running water. Pierce sighed, returned to the bedroom to put the gun back in its case, then went back to the bathroom. There was a tang of blood in the air. ‘I’m going to switch the light on,’ he said, only slightly louder than the sound of the running water. ‘Do you understand?’

No answer.

‘Stay where you are. I don’t want to hear a sound from you.’

Pierce flicked the light switch on. The asset remained sitting on the bathtub edge, motionless. He didn’t even flinch. He had taken his gloves off and his right hand was inside the tub, fingers dipped into the rising water. Hot water: the air was starting to thicken with steam, and there was already a border of fog on the mirror.

‘Why are you in my house?’

The asset didn’t react. Pierce sighed to himself, stepped around the asset so he could turn the taps off, then stood in front of the asset and pulled away his goggles and mask before putting them in the sink. Blood drops speckled the white ceramic.

‘Why are you in my house?’ he repeated.

The asset’s eyes were dull. He reminded Pierce of an animal who wasn’t quite sure if it’d just stumbled into a trap. He shook once in a while, the tremors almost too slight for Pierce to see. There were mud streaks across the floor, Pierce noticed with some annoyance.

He dragged the bathroom stool next to the asset and sat down so they could be eye-level.

‘Come on. Answer me,’ he said, gentler than before.

The asset’s lips twitched, as though he were about to speak, but no sound came out.

Pierce sighed. ‘Mission report.’ The asset reacted well to these familiar forms. They reassured him, no doubt.

‘I—I have to clean,’ the asset said, low and hoarse. His eyes were turned to Pierce, but whatever they were seeing, it wasn’t anything inside this room. ‘Wipe it off.’

‘Calm down. Look at me. _Look at me_.’

The asset’s eyes grew a fraction more focused.

‘Take your boots off,’ Pierce ordered. The asset obeyed, but his hands, even the flesh one, fumbled with the laces. The metal arm made little whirring noises, like a hiccuping machine.

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ Pierce snapped, and reached down to slip the asset’s boots off. ‘Be quiet. This is my house,’ he said, in a voice that could cut diamond. ‘Where my daughter sleeps. You don’t come here when she’s home.’

As if on cue, there was a footfall in the corridor. Pierce got up to lock the door, stumbled on one of the boots on the floor, and had to grab the sink to steady himself. His elbow struck a glass bottle. It teetered for a split-second—Pierce tried to catch it, but his body seemed to be stuck in slow-motion—then shattered on the floor.

The crash must have been heard throughout the house. The whole street.

‘Dad?’ Abby, just out of her room.

The asset opened his mouth, pulled his hand out of the water. Before he could move, Pierce grabbed a handful of his hair and slammed his face against the side of the sink. There was a fleshly slap and a faint crunch, but Pierce knew that he hadn’t really harmed the asset. Just a sting of pain to snap him out of his nonsense, that was all.

‘Dad, is everything OK?’ she was walking to the bathroom door.

‘You, corner. _Now_ ,’ Pierce hissed to the asset, who looked like he was about to spill onto the floor, then took three strides towards the bathroom door and grabbed the handle just before Abby could open it.

He drew a breath and opened the door a fraction. Abby stood outside in the darkened corridor, wearing ridiculous bunny print pyjamas that made her look seven instead of seventeen. _Why did you have to get up?_ Pierce thought. A dash of heat ran through his chest. It wasn’t anger.

‘Everything is all right,’ he said, his tone light. If the asset made a noise… ‘I just dropped something. Don’t come in here, the floor is full of broken glass. Just go back to your room, I’ll take care of it.’

She stood still for a few moments, the gloom in the corridor darkening her red-gold hair.

‘I told you to go to your room, Abby,’ Pierce said.

‘Sorry.’ She turned around. ‘Night, dad.’

‘Good night, dear.’

He waited until she’d padded back to her room to close the door, draw the bolt, and let out a breath of relief before turning around.

The asset was standing in the corner, where Pierce had told him to go, his back to the room. There was blood on the floor. The asset had stepped across the broken glass in his bare feet, was standing on it even now.

How long would he keep standing if Pierce asked him to? Hours? Days?

Forever?

He felt everything but calm drain away from him. He was no longer angry at the asset, if he had ever been.

Right now he just wanted to get things back to where they should be.

‘Turn around,’ he ordered. ‘Sit down. No, god’s sake, step around the glass.’

The asset obeyed, eyes downcast, motions rusty. He sat on the bathtub’s edge again, his cheek swollen and dark red where his face had hit the sink. Pierce looked away from it. Even though it had been necessary, perhaps he had lost his temper after all, just a little bit. But who could blame him?

The asset raised his head, his eyes half-hidden by curtains of hair. ‘I’m sorry, Mister Pierce,’ he croaked.

He picked up a towel and dipped it in warm water before handing it to the asset. ‘Calm down. Here,’ Pierce said, gently. ‘Clean yourself up and give me your report.’

The asset took the towel and started wiping the blood off his feet, his motions mechanic. Drops of pink water and tiny slivers of glass fell to the tiles. ‘The woman… the target. She’s dead.’

‘Good. You did well. Finish cleaning this up and wait for me here.’

The asset’s eyes were still vacant but he managed to nod.

Pierce stepped out of the bathroom, taking care to shut the door behind him. He walked down the corridor, making sure he avoided the squeaky spot, and pressed his ear against Abby’s bedroom door. When he was certain he heard nothing, he opened the door, just a crack. She was lying on the bed, face to the wall, one arm curled over her head. A wave of fierce protectiveness filled him, but there was no time to waste. He closed the door again, slid the bolt home, and went to the kitchen before returning upstairs.

The asset had put his boots on again and sat with his hands on his knees, looking at nothing. He was thinking, Pierce knew. He knew that expression, as intimately as he knew all of the asset’s expressions. Things were ticking away behind the asset’s eyes. He didn’t even shift a little as Pierce stepped into the bathroom. The floor was clean, the dirty towels folded and laid neatly in a corner.

‘Here,’ Pierce said, and pressed some ice wrapped in a dish towel to the asset’s face. ‘Hold it there. Take this.’ The asset opened his mouth for the pill.

Pierce could, he knew, have fed him rat poison, arsenic, strychnine, and the asset would have taken it without hesitation or complaint. It was only aspirin, of course. It would probably have no effect at all, given the asset’s extraordinary metabolism, but perhaps just the act of taking it would be soothing.

The act of receiving it, and who he was receiving it from.

‘Did you plant the things I gave you?’

The asset blinked thickly.

‘The woman I killed.’ Getting each word out seemed to be like spitting nails. This frustrated Pierce, but he didn’t let it show. ‘She did something bad.’

‘Yes, she did. I wouldn’t have given you the assignment otherwise. Did you complete it?’

The asset nodded, then looked up. In that light, his irises looked oddly damp. ‘Did I see her before?’

Pierce edged a little closer to the asset. ‘She was a traitor. You’re the one who told me that. You don’t remember?’

He had been wiped twice before this mission, just to be on the safe side, but Pierce knew it had been an unnecessary precaution.

What would the asset do, if Pierce asked him?

Anything. Anything at all.

The asset looked down at the floor, then shook his head, just once. ‘Was it me?’ he said after a few seconds. ‘My fault?’

Pierce sighed and edged a little closer to the asset before putting a hand on his shoulder. His tactical suit was damp with night dew, but Pierce would just have to put up with it.

The asset leaned his chin towards Pierce’s hand, stopped before their skin could touch, then stared straight ahead again.

‘Listen to me,’ Pierce said. ‘Everything that’s happened, happened for the best. Do you understand? Look at me.’ It wasn’t quite an order. He was being affectionate.

‘Have I ever hurt you?’ he said, once the asset had turned his face towards him. The blue-grey eyes had hardened back to ice flints. ‘Have I ever lied to you? Asked you to do something you couldn’t do?’

The asset shook his head, once, stilled.

‘That’s right,’ Pierce said. ‘I look out for you. And you look out for me. The two of us, together. Doing what needs to be done. Doing things only you can do. That’s how it works. That’s how it should be. You don’t need to remember your past assignments. No one can use those against you. But you have to remember that. You’ll always remember that. That’s all that matters.’

‘She had to die,’ the asset said.

He was steel again, his jaw set, his eyes full of sharp edges. If Pierce touched the skin on his face, he would find it feverish with anger.

He could feel the asset’s power, its volcanic intensity. The asset was dangerous. The asset could kill him.

The asset could kill for him.

The asset could die for him.

The asset was _his_.

And he would always be.

Was there a word for this? Closer than friends, or enemies, or lovers.

‘Yes. She did. You understand.’

The asset turned his face towards him, said nothing. His eyes didn’t blink.

Pierce squeezed his shoulder. ‘Come on. We need to get you out of here.’

He drove the asset to the rendezvous point. It was only a matter of reassurance, of course. The asset was more than capable of getting there on his own. He would go nowhere else.

Where else could he possibly go, after all?

Once in a while Pierce looked at the slick of headlights on the asset’s still and empty face.

A van with fake plates was already waiting for them in the parking lot. ‘Tell them to wipe him once you get him back to the lab,’ Pierce told the driver. The man had been smoking; the smell still clung to the cabin. ‘Tell them to give him something to calm him down before they knock him out. I want him to be comfortable.’

After he drove home, he put a pair of rubber gloves on, bleached the bathroom floor, threw the bloodied towels into a trash bag, sealed it with duct tape, and drove five blocks before he threw the bag into a dumpster. It was nearly four a.m. when he returned home. It would be daybreak soon, and he wondered if there was a point to trying to catch a couple of hours of sleep.

He stood in the bathroom, where everything was tidy again, and there were no signs the asset had ever been inside. No, that wasn’t true: there was a spot of blood on a tile.

Before the asset went to sleep, he got to forget everything. He got to start again with a blank slate every time he woke up.

He was in his twenties. He was always in his twenties.

Pierce supposed that was as close to absolution anyone ever got. Every time the asset woke up, he was cleansed, reborn. A new person, a new start, unburdened by memories, guilt, mistakes.

The asset was the luckiest being in the world. The only one for whom there was nothing that couldn’t be washed clean.

He wiped the blood away until the tile was sparkling white again.

***

‘You wanted to see me, Nick?’

Nick had secured the office so no one would peek in, even in the fiftieth floor, and after they shook hands he led Pierce to the chairs in front of a TV screen. There were papers arranged on a table. Nick pushed a button on the remote. Gerber’s face showed up on the screen along with a few seconds of pop music before Nick pressed _pause_. Gerber was caught with her mouth half-open, lines of static slicing through her neck and shoulders.

‘What’s this all about?’ Pierce said in his most nonchalant tone.

Nick pressed the _play_ button again. On the TV, Gerber sprung back to life. The music had stopped and she’d launched into what Pierce could tell was a wedding speech. She was wearing a bridesmaid dress in a violent shade of purple and her hairdo looked like it must weigh several pounds.

‘You’re looking at S.H.I.E.L.D.’s most wanted,’ Nick said.

Pierce pretended to be amused, then his expression turned serious. ‘Is this some kind of joke?’

‘I’ve been working on this for the past three days and I’m still not sure.’ He pressed another button and the images on the screen blurred forward. When he pressed _play_ again, he also turned the volume up. ‘Listen to this.’

In the video, Gerber was now leading the wedding guests in a slightly drunken rendition of _Ain’t No Sunshine_. The bride laughed and put her face in her hands in mock embarrassment.

Or perhaps real embarrassment, all things considered.

‘I can see why she’s wanted,’ Pierce said. ‘I hope you’ve got everyone in the musical crimes squad on this.’

Nick rolled his eye. ‘This is Gerber’s sister’s wedding back in ’85. They got the camcorders for free because she was marrying a crew member on _Miami Vice_.’

‘That’s—hang on, Gerber? Gerber-like-the-Baby? She’s one of ours, isn’t she? I met her a few years back. Wasn’t she in R&D?’

Nick looked at him for a second before answering. ‘She wasn’t just in R&D. She was working on the GH projects. Only at Level 4 clearance, but… Four days ago she was found dead in her place up in Tenleytown.’

‘You only call me down here whenever someone dies,’ Pierce said. ‘I take it she didn’t slip on a banana peel.’

‘Not unless she managed to slit her own throat. The police thought it was a B&E gone wrong, but this was done by a pro. The kind of pro who isn’t interested in gold necklaces lying right there in plain sight.’

Pierce said nothing and waited for Nick to continue.

‘We looked into it for the obvious reasons.’ On the screen, the wedding guests had formed a conga line. One of the flower girls was excavating her right nostril. ‘Whoever killed her didn’t leave any prints. No usable fibres, either. There were hairs, but they’re probably just from house guests. Not that we have a real DNA database to compare them to.’

‘Not yet,’ Pierce said. That wouldn’t be a problem, of course. The asset’s DNA would never be in it. He didn’t exist.

‘We did find this,’ Nick’s tone was still as cool as ever, but Pierce could tell he was warming up. Who could help it? Pierce knew what it felt like, the trail struck upon after hours of searching. Nick handed him a photograph from one of the folders. ‘Notice something?’

Pierce put his reading glasses on. It was a photo of a body, lying on its side, one arm twisted underneath it in an impossible position. A tangle of hair covered the face, but one open eye was still visible. There was a dark gash across the throat like a second, obscene mouth. The asset had done a thorough job: the cut was so deep Gerber’s clothes were soaked through with blood and a pool had formed underneath her. There was a trail across the floor, where she had crawled a couple of feet as she bled out.

Pierce let a few seconds slip by before he answered. ‘The pictures on the table.’

You could hardly see them. They were on a side table next to the body, at the very top of the photo.

‘One of them is out of order,’ Nick finished.

‘Third from the right. I’m guessing they’re supposed to be arranged by date.’

‘You can tell from the hairstyles.’

Had the asset done it on purpose? It didn’t matter, but it bothered Pierce that he wouldn’t be able to find out, now that the memory had been wiped.

‘We figured the perp put them back in the wrong order without realising it,’ Nick went on. ‘Which means—’

‘—he was looking for something. And didn’t want us to figure that out. Otherwise he’d have just ransacked the place.’

A corner of Nick’s mouth twitched into a smile of sorts. ‘Just like old times,’ he said, voice flat.

‘Spit it out, Nick. You found something.’

‘We found something. Fifth photo, hidden between the picture and the frame. No surprise the perp didn’t find it, it looked just like lining paper. But none of the other photos had it, so we took a deeper look at it.’ He picked up a black and white photo of a piece of paper. ‘This is what it looks like under UV light.’

There were rows of numbers on the paper. Pierce frowned in feigned concentration. ‘Are these… bank account numbers?’

‘They are,’ Nick said. ‘We haven’t gone through all the various shells and dummy corporate entities yet, but it looks like she was selling classified info. Probably anything she could get her hands on and wouldn’t arouse too much suspicion. For God knows how long. Probably doing the drops on the way to her aerobics class. Look at her.’ On the television screen Gerber was dancing to a jaunty pop tune, the disco ball and lights filling her face with glitter. ‘It’s like Cyndi Lauper had sex with Alger Hiss.’

‘Thank you for that image, Nick.’ Pierce raised an eyebrow. ‘You think she was working for—’

‘I’m not sure of anything at this point. Of course the Soviets are going to stonewall us, but I haven’t turned up anything with the KGB’s fingerprints yet. They do bury everything deep.’ He couldn’t keep a slight note of admiration off his voice.

‘And Gerber’s security check?’

‘She passed with flying colours.’ Nick grabbed the remote again and the TV screen went dark. The room was silent again. ‘I don’t think she was working alone.’

‘You mean in—’

‘I mean in S.H.I.E.L.D.’ His expression had turned fully unreadable again, but Pierce knew what he was thinking.

It was amazing how much more useful Gerber was dead than alive. Alive she had been a weak link, a squeaky wheel. Dead, she could be tied to all kinds of threads, the ones Nick would pull on. On the other end there would be ghosts for him to chase, and those with questionable loyalties, those who stood in the way.

There were no prisoners with Hydra.

Had Gerber had even the slightest inkling about what she’d set in motion once she’d sent that message to Nick?

Had Nick, when he’d put that tail on her?

‘You think this was an inside job, Nick?’ He gave the walls a quick glance, and his voice turned just a fraction lower. ‘Was she in it?’

He didn’t need to explain what he was talking about. Not to Nick.

‘I hope so. I doubt she was the ringleader.’

‘No.’ Pierce looked at the opaque windows, at the place where the Potomac would be otherwise visible, a ribbon of muddy silver in the autumn sun. ‘I think whoever you’re looking for wouldn’t let themselves be killed in a deal gone wrong. I’m sure they’re still out there.’ He turned back to Nick. ‘You said she passed her security screening with flying colours.’

‘That’s right. No questionable ties or associates, no security risks. Nothing on later screenings either.’

Pierce knew all about how Nick screened current agents. It was random, it was thorough, and above all it was secret.

‘She was a bit of a loner, apparently,’ Nick added. ‘Not the kind who gets recruited into bomb-making. I mean the regular kind. Ordinary.’ He leaned back a little in his chair and shrugged. ‘Of course, that’s also the perfect cover.’

‘I think there would always be something, Nick. Something that would give her away. Like… when you’re dealing with a disease. A test that lets you know it’s coming before anyone can see the symptoms. Put the pattern together and you’ll know that some day a fresh-faced recruit is going to sell intelligence secrets to the highest bidder. You’ll know about it even before they do.’

‘With enough information.’

‘With enough information,’ Pierce repeated.

Nick steepled his hands. ‘You know, this algorithm… If we ever get the technology to make it work, it will need access to everything. Banking information, school records, medical records. Some people might argue about privacy. Or freedom.’ Nick’s voice held its usual coolness, but Pierce thought he was making his opinion of such people clear nonetheless.

‘True. Other people might argue about how freedom is never free. Personally, I think Gerber would argue that she’d much rather have been stopped and helped before things happened in the first place, instead of ending up with her throat cut. I’ll leave the other arguments to people who can afford to bicker about them. Me, I’ll stick to that one.’

Nick seemed to find that amusing, even if his eye was as somber as ever. ‘That’s quite the insight.’

Pierce’s smile was weary, and knowing. ‘Here’s to insight.’

***

Above all things, Nick Fury was a man who could spot the lions.

At six, his mother had taken him to the doctor, and Nick had spent his time in the waiting room studying an old children’s magazine. There was a puzzle showing a wildlife scene in black and white. _Can you spot all the lions?_ the caption had asked, but Nick had known what to do even before he’d finished using his newly-minted reading skills. He’d seen a muzzle disguised in the ink lines of grass, a tail hidden in a bunch of leaves.

Later that day, his mother, who worked in a big building called _Shield_ even though Nick hadn’t seen any shields when she’d taken him there and who had medals from when dad had died, had lowered her head and hurried, gloved hand clutching his, past a group of white men crowding the sidewalk, and Nick had thought about the lions again.

 _Can you spot all the lions?_ Yes, he could. He had spent almost four decades doing it, and it was a skill he nurtured carefully. He owed it the fact that he had the director’s suite in a building where his grandfather might have worked as an elevator attendant. More importantly, he owed it his life.

And he knew that there wasn’t a surer sign of lions than the fact that you couldn’t see any.

He looked at the Gerber case documents, laid out in neat piles on his desk, and wondered where the lions were.

He had received her message, of course, and immediately put a tail on her. After she’d waited in the Smithsonian—of all places; why?; he’d find out—she’d gone home and her tail had gone along with her. The agent had watched her house, seen nobody get in or out. And the next day, Gerber was dead.

He couldn’t see the lions there either. Not yet.

He pressed the buzzer for his secretary. ‘Chang, can you come in here?’

She entered the office soon after. ‘Sir?’ His secretary was old enough to look like a leather boot and had a disposition to match. She had been around since she’d ended up in the SSR’s secretarial pool during the War, followed by a career typing for younger and younger people, knew everyone, and above all, possessed two of the qualities Nick valued the most: usefulness and discretion.

‘You got any savings, Chang?’

‘Not on the kind of salary S.H.I.E.L.D. pays, no.’ She smoothed some invisible wrinkle in her jacket. ‘Do you need me to make some coffee, boss? That’s more my ballpark.’

The day she stuck to making coffee would be the day singing frogs started raining from the heavens. ‘Humour me. You’ve got any valuables? Something in a safe deposit box?’

She pursed her lips in concentration for a second. ‘Well, there’s my grandmother’s jewellery. That’s in the bank.’

‘Is it worth anything?’

‘I hope so. My tell-all memoir will probably not be enough to fund my retirement.’

He didn’t laugh. ‘You’ve got paperwork for the deposit box?’

‘Sure.’

‘Thank you, Chang. You can go now.’

She pretended not to sound interested. ‘What’s all this about, boss?’

‘That’ll be all, Chang. Hold my calls.’

Just because she was useful, that didn’t mean he trusted her. It was nothing personal. He didn’t trust anyone.

There were levels of mistrust, of course.

Once she’d left the office, Nick looked at the files again. Maybe it meant nothing, and Chang had only confirmed what he already knew, even if sometimes you needed to hear it from someone else.

Still.

He picked up the evidence bag containing the key. It had no identifying marks, but from the shape it had to be a bank key, to some kind of safe or deposit box.

Gerber (like the Baby) had been the sort of person who kept her correspondence in binders with tabs arranged by year and her underwear organised by colour. She’d pencilled every appointment into her calendar in a neat hand, and Nick had begun to wonder if the days she’d marked with some kind of asterisk had been the days when she’d made her deals in some truck stop or out-of-the-way motel, written down for completeness’ sake. You almost expected her to have died neatly, body carefully arranged on the carpet, but of course everybody bled the same, red and messy.

So what the hell had that key been doing in one of her kitchen drawers?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This entire chapter is an extended _Breaking Bad_ homage, from Barbara Gerber (BG) as basically Gale Boetticher (GB), terrible music videos and all, to Pierce’s Dramatic Irony conversation with Nick Fury, to Pierce fucking with Bucky’s head a bit more (though I think Pierce manages to outdo Walt in terribleness? Idk, Pierce never throws a pizza on the roof, it’s hard to tell—but seriously, let me tell you how much I loved the little bits in CA:TWS in which it’s clear that Pierce manipulated Nick Fury by exploiting the latter’s experiences with racism; I tried to get a little bit of that across here), to the surprise bit of evidence at the end. Of course, _Breaking Bad_ is much better than my silly fic, so I guess what I’m saying here is that you should go watch _Breaking Bad_. Chang is a shout-out to Monica Chang from the comics (possibly they’re grandmother and granddaughter?). Oh, and the bit with Pierce talking to Bucky in the bathroom? Remember that scan I linked of little comics!Bucky having a talk with his father in the bathroom? ([Here](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/overlithe/15266763/256675/256675_original.png)) Once again, there is nothing in any of these universes that I cannot make terrible. You’re welcome!


	26. 1991

**12.**

**1991**

When they found the deer trail, it was early enough in the morning for mist to still cling to the trees and the hilltops. Pierce didn’t much care for hunts by stalking. He would rather lie in wait until the deer came to him. But he let himself follow Harrison, up the hill in a winding trail. When they reached a stream, Harrison stopped, adjusted the rifle slung over his shoulder, and splashed a little water on his hands before he brushed his hair—he was letting the grey show these days—away from his forehead.

‘It’s over,’ he said. ‘For our friends in the fetching furry hats, I mean. Great thing about the Cold War, we don’t even have to sit through another peace conference.’

‘Yes. It’s very convenient,’ Pierce said, and went up the trail a little, following the signs of the stag’s passage.

The air was crisp, a little spicy. It made you feel alive.

‘All that’s left is for someone to put the chairs on the tables and sweep the floor,’ Harrison added.

‘It opens up all kinds of possibilities, doesn’t it?’ Pierce said.

Harrison caught up with him, and gave him a little smirk. ‘Enjoy the moment, Al. Don’t be a sore winner. Goddamn it, you of all people. Shouldn’t you be patting yourself on the back over the Russians getting bled dry by their Winter?’

Pierce shrugged modestly. ‘If you say so, Harry. What I really enjoy is being prepared. I take it the Baron had something to say. Going forward.’

They walked without speaking for a few moments, the only sounds the soft crackle of grass and dead leaves being trod underfoot and the occasional bird cry. ‘He had plenty to say.’ He slowed down as they exited the tree copse into a clearing and shook his head. ‘Did you really think you were going to get away with it?’

‘With what?’ Pierce asked, calmly. He _was_ calm. The wide clearing was halfway up the hillside and stretched down almost to the valley below, and from here you could see the old-growth woods, grey-green, hugging the terrain. There was a cleanliness to it—you could pretend this was a world before people.

‘Don’t start with that shit, Al. I don’t think either of us wants to play games.’ Harrison stepped into the middle of the clearing, stopped, turned around to look at Pierce. ‘I know all about the stuff you’ve been feeding to Fury. I know he’s been turning all kinds of rocks. I know you were planning for me to take the fall. Maybe not enough for me to be led away in handcuffs, but enough for some of the mud to splash on me. Enough to push me out, with your S.H.I.E.L.D. pal leading the charge.’ He smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes, which looked like twin pieces of flint. ‘I gotta wonder, Al. You don’t think you survive for as long as I have without knowing where all the weak spots are do you? You think you ever gave an order to Frosty the Snowman without me getting a recording of it? You think you ever made a deal or vetted someone without it reaching my desk by morning?’ He took a step towards Pierce. ‘Eyes and ears. Knowing where the bodies are buried. You ever thought that was just for my enemies?’

Pierce glanced at the treetops, then back down at Harrison. ‘You want me to be scared, Harry? Is that what you’re going for?’

‘No.’ The other man reached into his camo vest. ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ He took out a cigarette and a gold lighter before Pierce could reply. ‘We were never here to hunt deer, were we?’

‘I guess not. Those things will kill you, you know.’ Pierce was suddenly very aware of the gun slung on his back.

‘Put it on my headstone,’ Harrison said, and took a big drag before he let out a plume of smoke. ‘I always liked you. Maybe that’s making me dumb, but you’re going to get an offer most people don’t. After we get back, you are going to resign from the Central Security Council. You are going to resign from everything. When you get tapped for the Secretary of Defence job—yeah, I know that was in the pipeline—you’re going to politely decline. Say you want to spend more time with your family. I know you got divorced, but they all say the same crap.’ Pierce felt a lash of anger at that, but let it pass without reaction. ‘You know the drill. Any trails leading Fury or anyone else to me, you’re going to bury them so deep even you will forget where they are. You are going to give me civilian control of Project Insight. And you’re going to tell your people that they can be my people, going forward. Or they can pick something else. I’m sure they can figure out the possibilities.’

Pierce didn’t answer.

Harrison stepped forward to pat his shoulder. This close, Pierce could smell the tobacco and the bitter tang of tar wafting up from the cigarette in his hand. ‘You should be happy, Al. Hydra doesn’t really offer retirement to its enemies. I guess we’re all feeling generous these days. One super-power down. One left to take over. Ten years. Maybe ten years before the world is ours. Consider yourself lucky that you’ll probably be around to see it.’

‘Ours?’ Pierce chuckled. Was there a flicker of apprehension in Harrison’s eyes before they turned steely again? He hoped so. ‘Before the world is ours? Oh, Harry.’ He shook his head, a little sad, as one might do to a clever child who had just got an answer wrong. ‘You’ve been one of us almost two decades longer than I have and you still think it’s about _ruling the world_?’ He gave the last three words a certain inflexion. ‘We’re not the villains from an old radio serial, you know? Spheres of influence, Pax Americana, super-powers… you really never thought any further than that?’

‘Please.’ The smirk had vanished from Harrison’s face. ‘Don’t even fucking start. You may have everyone falling for your whole “peace is our obligation” “I’ll not put myself forward to lead, only to serve” grandstanding, but you and I both know you don’t go into politics because you hate power. You want to serve so badly, go join the Peace Corps. Otherwise don’t try to sell me the hooker with the heart of gold. Why did you join Hydra in the first place?’

‘Because I got a call at 3 a.m., Harry.’

Because he had spent his life until then in the world of compromise and back room deals and talk about both sides and meeting people where they were. Because he had spent his life until then believing that the world was fine as it was, the perfect system had already been developed and any of its flaws were a simple matter of people being mistaken or uneducated. The world needed only a few adjustments, like a messy room that could be fixed with a sweep, and there was nothing that couldn’t be solved with a fundraiser and a few ballots. Because for all his years in S.H.I.E.L.D., when it was so often down to your wits and the finality of a bullet, from Cambodia to the streets of D.C. to a basement in Bogotá, he had spent so many years seeing without seeing, sneering at fanatics with bombs and guns who thought there could be such a thing as change. Because he had been all the while unaware that struggle was the modern world’s lifeblood as much as oil was, that it brought him the food he ate, the clothes he wore, his sailing trips with the girls. Because he had been asleep while the true shape of things was made by gunboats and machine guns and tear gas, like a father who remained in bed while his children set the house on fire.

He hoped Nick would have a place in the world to come. On that day, masks down, they would shake hands one more time, and each of them would thank the other for setting him on the right path.

‘That’s great, Al. I don’t even care. Let’s head back. Give you enough time to collect yourself.’ He took a few steps back, began to turn away.

‘You forgot something.’

Harrison stopped. ‘Care to refresh my memory?’

God, he couldn’t remember when the air had last smelled this tangy. It reminded him of spring, not winter. Sap and growing things. It made you feel alive, almost a little drunk. ‘The “or else”,’ Pierce said, congenial. ‘There’s an “or else”, isn’t there? That’s usually how these things work…’

If there had been a flicker of worry in Harrison’s face, it was no longer there. His expression was as smooth as ever. ‘Come on, I was really expecting to do this without any need of that. Sort this out like gentlemen, or at least close enough for government work. No? Fine. Your little adventures with the Winter Soldier are going to be on Stark’s desk in twenty-four hours if you don’t step away. And don’t even try anything with that rifle. Those files will still make it to Stark if I’m not there to stop them.’

Pierce’s hand left the strap. ‘Christ, Harry, I was just adjusting it. We’re both civilised men. I hope so, at least.’

Harrison finished his cigarette, dropped it on the ground, and stamped it out. ‘We sure are.’

‘And you’re not concerned all that… revealing information you’re going to drop on Stark isn’t going to trace back to you? Lie down with dogs and all that.’

‘What do you think? You’ve been cut loose, Al. Shit, I’m surprised I can’t hear the shredders from here. You’ve been a rogue agent for the past twenty-four hours. One who orders the long-lost cousin of Charles Freaking Manson to commit assassinations in US soil, no less. I made sure to include all the stuff about your frosty buddy’s adventures with Soviet creeps, by the way. Sort of a last hurrah, if you will. Still can’t beat the classics.’

‘Thank you, Harry. That was very thoughtful.’ He made the face of a man lost in thought for a few seconds, then spoke again. ‘I know you weren’t really wondering, but the reason why you can’t hear those shredders? They’re very quiet right now. You see, your people? I spoke to them too. It turns out they like me better than you. Whitehall? He came straight to me the minute after you told him about cutting me loose, which makes me think you should spend less time on who I vet and more time on who you vet. So right now? I’m still a member of Hydra in good standing, Harry. Everything is like it was yesterday and how it’ll be tomorrow. You were right, Harry. The Baron did have a lot to say.’

Harrison’s eyes widened a fraction, even if the rest of his expression remained unchanged.

‘Oh, almost slipped my mind,’ Pierce said. ‘Stark’s dead. You didn’t hear? He died early this morning. He and Maria, a damn shame. Long Island. Sometimes people will be driving on a wide-open road and one of their front wheels will burst just like that. Almost as if someone shot at it. And brakes, well, they’re not always reliable. Really makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Death comes to us all, that kind of thing. Even to powerful men. Even to powerful men who stick their noses where they’re not wanted.’

‘You’re going to have to get better at making threats, Al.’ Harrison’s tone was still light, but Pierce was sure he could detect the first few cracks in the facade, the sheen of sweat starting on his forehead.

‘Threats? Who’s threatening? I’m making observations, Harry. You, for example, have just had an extraordinary bit of bad luck. It happens. But unfortunately we can’t let it happen in the new Hydra.’

Harrison was visibly nervous now, even if he did chuckle in response. His fingers were on his gun strap. ‘What are you even yammering about?’

‘The scandal, of course. We can’t work in the shadows if people like you are going to drag us into the light. So we’re going to have to scrub you away entirely. Don’t look so put out, Harry, I’m sure you wouldn’t appreciate the State Department rooting through your dirty laundry afterwards. I mean, you’ll be in no condition to really appreciate it, obviously, but I’m sure your family will.’

‘Is this some kind of—’

‘Joke? No. I don’t think a dead woman is a laughing matter. Oh, right, I forget. You don’t know this yet, but you have just killed a call girl. Don’t worry—mostly accidentally. Of course, abusing prescription meds is never a good idea.’ Pierce shook his head. His tone was light. ‘At your age, Harry.’

Harrison’s expression was no longer smooth. ‘You son of a bitch. If you think—’

‘Were you going to say “that you’re going to get away with this”? First of all, I honestly expected better from you. Second, the body has already been found. That place you use for your screwing around time.’ Pierce couldn’t keep a note of disapproval off his voice. Throughout the years, Pierce had noticed that Harrison followed his own advice regarding getting one’s rocks off with professionals with extraordinary frequency. Maybe he was just old-fashioned, but Pierce couldn’t help but have a dim view of that. He went on. ‘ _Your_ body, on the other hand, will take a little longer. You see, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, you never came with me on this hunting trip.’

He took another step towards Harrison and his voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘You did notice that no one saw us arrive, right? You didn’t wonder about that? No? It turns out you took your boat out. But don’t worry, you left a note, so everybody will know what happened. Hopefully you won’t take too long to be recovered. I don’t want things to be any harder than what they’re already going to be on Ann and your boys. I’m not heartless, Harry. Even Fury will be tactful, now that he’s found out exactly who sent the foxes into his henhouse. Don’t worry about any evidence, by the way. The asset is very thorough when he’s given the right orders.’ _How mission-ready is he_ now, he almost said, but that would be petty. ‘You see, those recording machines you made such a point to bring up? The ones keeping an eye on the asset? It turns out that for the past twenty-four hours they haven’t been seeing a thing.’

‘Goddamn—’

Whatever Harrison was going to do—Yell at him? Punch him? Try to shoot him, even with a rifle and at this close a range?—he never got to finish it. He froze in place. Anger and fear drained from his face and were replaced by blank surprise. Very slowly, he reached for his shoulder and tried to pull the tranq dart jutting out from his flesh.

His rifle slid off his shoulder. He stumbled around, swaying like a drunk, and managed to squeeze the trigger. The shot went wild, above the treetops. Harrison fell to his knees, then slumped to the ground in an ungainly heap.

‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to be alive for the whole thing, but don’t worry. I told the asset to be as quick as possible. Oh, and Harry? This was never about victory. I want you to know that.’

It wasn’t a lie. Victory in ten years’ time? It had never been about winning. It had never been about ruling. It had never even been about fear. Hydra had not created the fear. It had not created the elites huddling fearfully in their compounds, it had not created the masses hanging in terror to the brink. It had not created the dying empires or their decay, even if it had hastened their demise like a blade slicing away sickness, even if it had been born into one, a surprise little cluster of healthy tissue in a degenerate body.

Hydra—the new Hydra—simply _understood_ the fear. It understood what it was like to be released from uncertainty, from strife, from doubt. The freedom that came with always having a task, a purpose, a constant knowledge of how you should live and towards what. The joy of meaning. The joy of being unburdened.

And once the real enemies had been cut away, then there would be a world of perfect order, progress, stability.

He looked at the trees.

It would be as close as a man could ever get to tasting eternity.

The asset stepped out of the trees, smooth and silent like a fin slicing through water. _He really is extraordinary_ , Pierce thought as the asset rounded up on Harrison before grabbing him by the ankle.

A world without war. A world without fear.

Pierce leaned down to grab Harrison’s fallen rifle. A little drool dripped down Harrison’s chin and his eyes were wide and white with terror.

The asset—he wasn’t wearing goggles, just dark camouflage face-paint—looked at Pierce, who nodded slightly.

‘It’s a shame, you know, Harry,’ Pierce said. ‘I really did like you.’ The man on the ground tried to speak, or scream, but only a thread of sound escaped his mouth.

Pierce straightened up.

‘Hail Hydra,’ he said.

Peace through strength.

Strength through order.

He stepped back as the asset dragged Harrison across the grass and into the woods, and watched until he could no longer tell the two shapes apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harrison’s line about the USSR being bled dry by their Winter is an ironic echo of the “we have only our Winter” line from Ed Brubaker’s Cap run/real life and why it’s a terrible idea to invade Russia during winter. The line about the machines not seeing a thing is paraphrased from a similar scene in _Minority Report_.


	27. The Great Red Dragon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter’s illustration is by **dark_roast** , click on the picture to go to her art post.

> You fit into me  
>  like a hook into an eye
> 
> a fish hook  
>  an open eye  
>  —Margaret Atwood

**Part III: _The Great Red Dragon_**

There is a badness in the world, under the skin. When he slices the flesh it oozes out, like bad blood.

There is a badness in him, under the skin. If the soldier sliced his own flesh he’d see a glistening alien organ, dark and heavy with poison. A second liver, a growth around the heart.

A scribble with fangs.

***

Sometimes the soldier is Bad.

Sometimes the soldier doesn’t know he’s Bad. The blows are a surprise, then, an angry red sting on the skin of his face, a ringing ear, bruised flesh.

The blows are not really a surprise, because he knows that the heat in his chest and the rush of anger

_(hate hate you hate it him no stop it shh)_

in his blood are part of his badness. He deserves it. He needs to be corrected. Fixed. Transformed.

Afterwards the ache always turns sweet, as though instead of striking him the master has squeezed his shoulder, patted his knee, brushed the skin under the soldier’s eye with his thumb.

***

The soldier has his mission.

He lies under a water tank and waits for the space between heartbeats. The first bullet shatters the glass pane in the high-rise. The second bullet hits the target’s head. The third stops the target’s heart.

‘Secure the floor,’ he says into the radio.

The men (his men?) obey him because the soldier is strong. Because the soldier is invulnerable, unstoppable. Because he jumps

_(don’t look down)_

between the buildings, makes short work of the armed men on the stairs, steps into the corridor through the smoke and debris of an explosion.

Because—

Pictures, little needle jabs behind his right eye. A tank’s gun, firing. Get down, get down. He has to keep them (who??) safe.

His flesh hand tightens around his SIG until he can feel the strain in the bones. It’s not real. Only this is real: the plink his explosives make when they land on the concrete floor; the meaty sound of his bullets hitting home before anyone (they are so _slow_ and so _weak_ and so _stupid_ not like him never like him never) can even fire a shot back; the look in their eyes, because he is invisible soundless fleshless until he hurts them, then their eyes fill with surprise or fear or pain.

Then he is real.

(He doesn’t want to look at their eyes.)

There are only the men he gives Orders to now, and the bodies.

‘Did you retrieve it?’ the soldier asks one of

_(his)_

the men.

‘Sure, buddy.’

The soldier doesn’t know his name. They have met before, perhaps. It doesn’t matter. The mission is completed. Soon it will be wiped from the soldier’s head.

‘Rumlow to Alpha Echo.’ The man is talking to his own radio.

The pictures will be scrubbed away too. His head will be pried open, and everything bad will be pulled out.

‘—one casualty. We’ll—’

_Gotta take care of them._

Who?

Faces, uniforms. Buttons on a blue coat.

The soldier wants to push his eyeball aside and pin the thought down with the tip of one of his knives. Then he could pull the thought out, all its legs wriggling, and crush it.

‘Watch—’

He senses the threat before the man (Rumlow?) can get the words out. He has sensed it before anyone else even knew it was there. Not a merc, this one. He holds the gun hesitantly, eyes white with terror. Maybe he was hiding out of sight, picked up a dropped pistol. The soldier

_(gotta take care of)_

kicks him before he can get a shot off and even though the soldier doesn’t mean to

_(!!!)_

the blow is hard enough to send the man spinning backwards into the broken glass pane and then there’s a scream and the soldier lunges forward. He sees his hand reach forward, close on nothing.

He watches the man fall, fall, fall.

***

When he wakes up there is an armed guard in the room.

***

He sits in the chair while the whitecoats ready their needles and their bags and their instruments. There is already a tube pressed into the back of his hand, snaking up his veins. With each drop the soldier can feel a thought getting its string cut, snip snip snip, float away to where it won’t swell inside his head.

The master stands above him. If the soldier closes his eyes he can still feel him, radiant and golden. Branded under the soldier’s skin.

He opens his eyes again. The master stretches up beyond the room, into the stars.

_(white star stars and)_

Another flash: smallness. Why d’you want to get yourself killed? Pick on someone your own—

The soldier has never been small. (Not even Before.)

_?_

He looks up at the master. He wants to know if he’s been Bad.

The master has one hand in his jacket pocket, the other is holding his glasses. ‘You did a great job on this assignment,’ he says. ‘You should be proud of yourself.’

The soldier closes his eyes again. He feels the master’s voice inside him, a red and gold thread holding him tight. Another needle is going to make him fall asleep. He hasn’t been Bad. He hasn’t been Bad. He hasn’t been Bad.

He can see his skin part in dozens of places, like he’s covered in open mouths. Scales peek out, then claw tips, then wings, ripping through his flesh. They are dark, half-furled, slick with blood and birth fluids. The metal in his good arm spreads through muscles, hardens into ridges.

He is unbreakable.

***

Darkness.

Then water.

The first thing.

A golden man stands above him, powerful, strong.

He is weak. Severed wires writhe inside his head. His limbs lie uselessly on the table.

Fog.

Another golden man: he looks at a window full of the colour of old blood, a shape rising into the stars. But this man isn’t powerful, isn’t strong. He

_(he looks at him he looks at him like he knows him like he)_

_(like the two of them are)_

is small and pathetic and weak, he would let himself be _caught_ , he would let things be _done_ to him, he would just _take_ it. He has to be scrubbed out.

Wiped off.

He deserves it.

The soldier has to cut the badness away.

A blade behind his eyes, sharper and sharper, until it slices through brain matter and bad thoughts.

The soldier blinks away pain, looks up at the master.

The master is the first thing after the water.

The last thing before he closes his eyes.

Darkness.

***

Birth. Death. Birth.

Transformation.

***

One more time.

***

Darkness.

Then water.

He wonders what it would be like to drown in it. He wouldn’t rot, he knows. First his skin would peel off, then his flesh, layer by layer, then a lace of sinew and nerves would float away, until the only thing left would be steel, tangled in seaweed, a shadow of wings and a gleam of razor-sharp claws.

***

_You don’t do these things because you enjoy them_ , the master says. Has he spoken out loud? The soldier isn’t sure.

_You do them because they are necessary._

The soldier knows how to hurt. How to cut hamstrings so someone can only crawl helplessly, how to shoot someone in the throat so that they choke on their own blood.

He blinks dampness away (leaking sometimes he leaks one day he will be fixed transformed smooth like a steel blade diamond-hard) and looks at the master from under his eyelashes.

The master’s face is hazy for a moment, younger. _I never liked bullies_. Good, yes. The master is good. He doesn’t want to order these things. He does it because he has no choice.

 _Where did I come from?_ the soldier almost asks. He can feel the words shape in his mouth, out of his control, thorns spearing his tongue.

He doesn’t have to ask. There are things in his head, pincers burrowing inside him: spurts of blood, the smell of ruptured intestines, skin charred and seared by explosions.

Nausea pools in the back of his throat.

_Because you enjoy them._

He deserves to be punished.

He deserves every bad thing that happens to him, but instead the master sits down at his side, and tells him ‘One day the world will know what a gift you’ve been to it’ and stays with him until he’s made to sleep.

***

Darkness.

Then water.

This is how he is born.

The master has created him. Shaped him out of something small and breakable.

He tails the targets to an alleyway.

Gave him his purpose.

The master speaks to him from billboards ( _See_ ) and banners hung over parking lots ( _Every Day_ ). From graffiti and neon lights.

They don’t see him coming, don’t even realise he’s there until he muffles their screams with a snap of the first target’s neck, a shot fired point-blank into the second target’s heart.

They are on the ground at his feet, one of them slumped against the brick wall.

_(sometimes I think you like getting punched)_

Made him into a knife, a bullet. Something strong. Not like them.

He swallows a hot mouthful of vomit.

They were Bad. That is why the soldier had to kill them. This is why the master had to make him, why he was born (reborn). So he can slice the badness away. Tear it. Consume it.

One day he will be done, but when he tries to make himself think of it, his mind turns white, and white, and empty.

***

What would it be like, to tear everything to pieces?

To let the guards fire their bullets into his brain.

(All the red would be wiped off, then cold and dark, then he would wake up.)

***

_Remember._

He steps closer to the target lying on the rug, his Glock

_(put the barrel in your mouth and pull the trigger do one thing right end it justenditendit)_

still drawn.

The target is looking up at the ceiling, eyes glistening, dark wings of blood spread under him. ‘Please,’ he gurgles.

The soldier watches as his hand points the gun at the target’s head, watches as the finger pulls the trigger. One shot. Then silence.

_Remember._

_Remember what?_

The mission. The soldier has his mission.

He is needed. Above all, he is needed.

He squeezes the trigger again.

He is empty.

***

Transformation.

***

Restraints tighten around him.

_You hate this._

_You hate_ him.

The thought is impossible. It fills his head with fire, hollows him out with fear.

_Once you go to sleep you will forget. Once you go to sleep you will forget. Once you go to sleep you will forget._

_You gotta hold on. You gotta fight. This time. This time you’ll fight it._

He never fights back.

(He wants it. He must.)

(Everything that’s happened is his fault.)

_Please. Hold on. Just hold on. You gotta hold—_

***

He wakes up to the master.

He is given his mission.

***

When he wakes up there are two armed guards in the room.

***

One more time.

***

The soldier has his mission.

His bullets rip through the front tires and the car fishtails, leaving burnt rubber across the narrow backroad. The second car swerves, tries to get between the skidding car and the cliff’s edge, but it’s too late.

Down it goes.

Once the front end has gone over the edge, the rear wheels spin helplessly in the air for a second. Sunlight glints off the bumper.

The soldier stares at the red tail-light.

_(tunnel)_

_(train)_

Something coils in his chest, darts down his flesh arm. He pushes it away, looks at the edge of the cliff. The briefing said nothing about a second car, about someone travelling with the target. The woman

_(like back in)_

has darted out of her car and rappelled down the cliff, after the target.

His binoculars shake.

No, not the binoculars, the soldier realises. His right hand is shaking. He squeezes it with the metal one until the pain stills it, then slinks across the hilly terrain to a spot where he can wait for the target.

He is climbing up the cliff. No, _they_ are climbing up the cliff. The target and the woman. The soldier waits, rifle ready, until they are in sight.

His trigger finger is quiet now, obedient, strong.

They huddle behind the car still left on the road. The car is armoured, but the tires aren’t, and the soldier shoots two of them out.

The target is wearing a shirt and jeans, but the woman (bodyguard?)(who?) is in a tactical suit. Black. Red hair.

Now it’s a spot under his temple that’s shaking. He squeezes the thoughts away.

The target and the woman stay behind the car. They think this will shield them from the soldier, but he can wait. He doesn’t feel hunger, or thirst, or tiredness. He waits until he sees them stir, lands a bullet in the road a foot away from them.

The sun starts to sink below the horizon.

The soldier can wait until his skin sloughs off and leaves only metal behind.

The woman shoots at him, sends up a spray of rock dust a few feet in front of him. She has traced the trajectory of his bullets back to him, but he is out of sight. He is invisible, bullet-proof.

She fires again. He looks through the scope, aims.

He doesn’t press the trigger.

She is trying to make him fire, lure him out. He lets her spend her bullets, waits still and silent.

When they move, he is ready. They are edging away from the car, the woman in front, blocking the target from view. They are going to try to make a run for it. No other choice, like a mouse caught in a trap.

He dry-swallows. (Why?)

The woman tosses something onto the road. The soldier watches for a split-second, then there’s a crack and a cloud of smoke bursts out. The soldier puts on his goggles, stands up, rifle at the ready. He can see through smoke, through darkness. The woman is shielding the target with her body, scuttling away, handgun drawn.

The soldier doesn’t have a clean shot of the target. It doesn’t matter. He fires.

They

_(fall)_

both drop to the ground.

The soldier climbs down to the road, steady, deliberate. He hit the target just above his pelvis, and now he is crawling up the road, his legs useless, the back of his shirt soaked with blood. In the weak light, it looks almost purple.

A bullet whistles past him. The soldier doesn’t stop. The target slows down, stills, then tries

_(hang on)_

to drag himself forward again. The soldier fires.

The target’s head snaps back, then slams forward onto the ground with a soft crunch.

The rumble of an engine. The soldier turns around. One of the car’s doors is open, the woman’s foot hanging out. She has left a blood trail the colour of burnt rubber behind her.

Target eliminated. Mission completed.

The car bucks back, then forward. She is trying to ram the soldier, he knows, but one of the car’s front wheels is hanging off the cliff and the weight of the front axle is dragging it forward.

Mission completed.

The engine splutters, splutters, splutters. Tires kick dirt, lift off the ground.

The woman is half slumped on the steering wheel. She is made of flesh and skin and organs that tear as easy as paper, not metal and wires and gears. The blood loss is making her weak and blind. She doesn’t realise the car is going to roll down the cliff.

The mission is completed.

_Fall. The car is going to fall._

_You have to_ —

The mission is completed.

 _You have to st_ —

The mission is—

_(hang on)_

_(snow tunnel rail)_

_(hang on)_

He steps up to the car, grabs the rear axle with his strong hand, and pulls. Pain sears his muscles and the metal groans, but manages to take one step back, then another. He opens his hand. The metal joints click and whirr and the rear end of the car crashes to the ground.

He can see the woman inside the car. She has yanked the door shut with one foot and is slumped across the front seats, hand pressed against the spot in her belly where the bullet hit.

Even with the door closed, the soldier is sure he can smell the blood seeping through her fingers.

He has grazed a kidney, maybe. Perforated her intestines.

The woman is not part of the mission. The woman was not part of the briefing.

 _But he_ —

She is no one.

Like him.

He takes three sideways steps to the car door.

The woman pushes it open and fires. The bullet hits his left side. He grabs the woman’s arm. She struggles. There is a crackle of electricity, but he barely feels the sting. The inside of the car smells of burnt wire. He raises his left fist, but there’s no need. The woman drops back onto the car seats, spent. Her brow furrows a little, then turns smooth again. Blood drips down onto the road in fat black beads.

He pulls out the bullet embedded in his body armour. It only just nicked his flesh.

The woman is asleep, not dead. If he takes off his glove and touches her skin, it will be only a little cool.

Red hair pools around her face. He—

The ache in his head again, behind his eyes. Cut thoughts drift away into the fog, out of reach.

_(you know)_

_The woman. She is_ —

He knows that eagle, branded on her shoulder like his star.

She is no one. She is no one.

Like his star. A star. A painted star.

The pain sharpens to a blade of ice.

He reaches into the car and picks her up. She is still pretending, just a little. He can feel her force herself to remain still.

(What did he see in her eyes? Confusion? Surprise?)

(What did she see?)

Soon she is not pretending. He looks down at the rise and fall of her chest, at the tangle of red hair against his arm.

The blood pools between them. If he wants to, he can reach up and

_(he was already down, not gonna kill someone who’s already)_

_(star)_

snap her neck.

She is motionless in his arms, her face empty, unafraid, her body warm and slack. He wonders if her head is full of ice.

He walks down to a bigger road, where there are headlights, lays her down on the ground. Her throat makes a soft noise. Her eyes flutter open, just a fraction. He reaches down with his

_(good)_

weak hand to slide them shut and in the dark her hair is still the colour of blood.

He is in the chair.

The master asks him about the woman, and the soldier knows that he has been Bad. There are little things, like the messages from the master only he can read. The way the master sits, the half-sigh he lets out before he begins to speak. The soldier looks down, until a smack of knuckles on his chin makes him look up. The badness congeals in his stomach, radiates as shivers.

He watches as each word lands on his skin and slices through the flesh like a scalpel. It is coming, he knows. He can already feel his breath speed up.

‘Wipe him.’

Relief. It is starting, finally. He is small and afraid at the master’s feet, and the pain will rip through his body, shred everything in its way, but there is something better afterwards.

He opens his mouth for the bit, almost eagerly. The sooner it begins, the sooner it will end.

(He hates it. Hates it.)

(Punishment for thinking he can keep things in his head where the master can’t see.)

Then he will be cleansed, redeemed. The badness paid for, wiped off. Everything squared away. Then he and the master can start over. Then the master can be good to him.

The jaws of the machine start closing like the petals of a carnivorous plant. That way he doesn’t have to see anyone looking at him.

Sometimes the soldier doesn’t know where he ends and the master begins, what to call the thing he can feel inside his chest, just under his ribcage.

(Is it love?)

[ ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2515286)

***

The soldier has his mission.

He escorts a box, riding next to it in the back of a truck. He doesn’t know what’s inside the box, doesn’t ask, doesn’t think. He doesn’t look, but his eyes still see (everything) and he knows there’s the thinnest thread of glowing blue seeping from the box.

It makes him itch. Something is going to burst out of his flesh very soon.

He doesn’t open the box.

The thing inside him tightens around his torso. If he removed his suit he would see it, a bruise-coloured shape moving under the skin.

He says nothing, does nothing.

The box is picked up. Nobody tried to stop them, to steal it. The soldier vanishes across the old factory grounds, to make his way to the pick-up point.

He stops. There is a picture on the ground, tinged sickness-yellow by the far-off haze of street lamps.

Not a picture, a newspaper, torn apart, rain-stained. He

_(stripes)_

picks it up, studies it. The masthead and headline have been mostly torn off. He can only read a few slices of words: GERS INI ORK, like something in a language that hasn’t been put in his head. In the picture there’s a man with his head blackened out by the bottom half of a stain and wearing some kind of

_(you’re keeping the)_

outfit.

The soldier looks at the picture. No, he looks at his fist. The picture is inside the fist, crumpled into a ball.

The thing in his chest has moved up. Its tail curls around his throat, fills his mouth with bile.

The soldier has his mission.

The soldier has—

He has—

He has to—

He waits for the master to see him.

He sits in the shadows and waits for the master to see him, and when he does the master is barely surprised.

(The soldier is a ghost. The soldier is a monster. The soldier is a terror. Everyone is afraid of the soldier. But not the master. Never. So this is where he belongs. Whose soldier he is.)

‘You didn’t show up at the pick-up point,’ the master says, neither pleased nor disappointed.

The soldier thrusts out his clenched fist.

 _(die why won’t_ he _kill you and die)_

He is covered in grime and sweat. There is a corner of paper poking out from between his fingers.

The master takes a step closer. ‘I missed you,’ he says.

The soldier’s fist opens. He feels everything inside him drip to the floor, until he is only a shell.

The master picks up the crumpled newspaper sheet, gingerly, holding it as though it were a dead rat.

‘Ah,’ he says, kind, gentle. He sits down on the steps, next to the soldier. ‘You know why you’re wiped after every mission. So no one has anything to threaten you with.’ A pause. The air is very warm. ‘But I don’t think that’s the only reason. I think it’s just better, sometimes. To not have to remember.’

The soldier feels his tongue flick over his lips. ‘I wanna—I want it out of my head. I—I need it. Out. Out of my head.’

The master lets him forget. His face is the last thing the soldier sees before the needle is put on the back of his hand, before his sleeping body is put into the chair and he is wiped clean.

He looks at the master until the darkness takes him and he knows that when he wakes up his head will no longer be full of stars.

_(full of St—)_

***

When he wakes up there are three armed guards in the room.

***

One more time.

***

One more time.

***

One more time.

***

The soldier has his mission.

The nausea from the machines that put pictures in his head has started to fade, and he listens to the mission briefing. The target is a man with an eyepatch, but even with two eyes nobody ever sees the soldier coming.

The master is not pleased. The soldier can tell, but even so he isn’t punished.

(The soldier doesn’t remember, but his flesh knows the master has been less and less pleased, that even with the ice there are places that still sting, where the master’s fingerprints are branded deep under the skin.)

***

_(Stev—)_

***

‘Oh, Renata… I wish you would have knocked.’

The woman lets out a little yelp of pain as the bullets hit her, one in the abdomen, the other in the chest, then falls to the floor. A pinkish froth drips onto the carpet. She gasps for a few moments, then is silent, and starts to cool.

The master is displeased. The soldier can tell from the set of his jaw, slight furrowing of his brow. He can sense it in the air.

The master wouldn’t have killed the woman if it weren’t necessary. If she didn’t need to die.

_Zola?_

The soldier watches as the master wipes the gun with a dish towel and shakes his head. He tries to ready himself. Something is coming. He doesn’t know what it is.

Time passes differently for the soldier. He is born. He is needed. He is put to rest.

(Put to sleep.)

Not long now, he knows. After the two targets, everything will finally be right. He will be cleaned, reborn, made right. All the right parts stitched together, the wrong parts cut away. Wiped off. No more need for the master to correct him.

Everything will be wonderful.

(He will be dead.)

‘Come on,’ the master says. ‘We need to clean this up.’

They are together in this, the soldier knows. The master has just killed

_(see what happens)_

for him. Done everything for (to) him.

The soldier gets up to obey his orders.

Time passes differently for the soldier, but he knows it will be soon.

(Will it hurt?)

He looks up at the master, at his eyes, which are warm and cold and soft and sharp.

The soldier has his mission.

He knows he has had other missions. He doesn’t remember them. They are in some place deep inside, where only the master can touch. Fingerprints. A thick spool of blood.

He is so tired.

They have come so far, the two of them, for each other.

(His hands around the soldier’s neck. His face, just before the soldier’s eyes close.)

What’s one more?

***

There is something inside him, under the skin. A sharp-edged stone, embedded in his flesh. It presses against the inside of his skull. It sits under his tongue.

He wishes he could slice it out.

Falling.

_(Save him.)_

_(You have to save him.)_

_You have to—_

_I have to._

_I have to._

Water.

(Transformation.)

***

_You’re my friend._

***

He doesn’t have to (get to) forget, but he knows it won’t be long until he closes his eyes and it’s all gone.

But maybe this time maybe this time maybe maybe—

***

_Bucky._

+++++++

.  
.  
.  
.

> You are an average, lazy, boring, cowardly, woman-fearing man. Without me, that's what you would have kept on being, ad nauseam. But I made you into something. You were the best man you've ever been with me. And you know it.  
>  —Gillian Flynn, _Gone Girl_  
> 

**+++ _The End_ +++**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, last author’s note, what a milestone. ;) In this part of the fic, I really tried to get across Bucky’s fractured psyche and his utter alienation from… well, everything, really, starting with himself. It’s not a headspace that’s easy to put into writing and I know I didn’t really do it justice, but hopefully I managed to capture at least a glimpse. Some of the imagery and concepts in this chapter draw heavily from the art of William Blake, specifically the Great Red Dragon paintings. In particular, [_The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun_](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Reddragon.jpg) has actually been housed at the Brooklyn Museum since 1915 and I tried to imply in the fic that Bucky has faint memories of Steve dragging him to see it. (I couldn’t find out if the painting was actually displayed to the public during the 30s. If it wasn’t, hey, I’ve got my artistic license right here. ;)) And yes, there are some similarities with the obvious pop culture reference, mostly around the stuff regarding identifying with the power/powerlessness of this or that figure and the transformation motif.
> 
> With regards to Bucky’s encounter with Nat, this of course is the same encounter she relates to Steve in CA:TWS. I love Bucky/Nat like meat loves salt, but given Winter Soldier!Bucky’s very different mental state (and, frankly, inability to consent to anything) in the movies vs the comics, not to mention the many differences in the whole Winter Soldier plot line itself, as well as Nat’s backstory, it made sense to me that their past encounters, if any, would also have to be very different. So this was basically my attempt to give them a wee bit of backstory that would fit with the MCU and also leaves the door open for additional encounters in their pasts (and hopefully very different encounters in their future ;)) as, given my head-canon for MCU!Nat, it’s entirely possible the two of them would have crossed paths at other times.
> 
> The line _Punishment for thinking he can keep things in his head where the master can’t see_ and the emphasis put on the _You’re my friend_ line from CA:TWS were my attempt at highlighting two aspects of Bucky’s psychology at this point in time that I feel are particularly important (once again, tl;dr meta ahead). Basically, Pierce uses the conscious wipes as a punishment, but in that scene in the fic, and also in the wipe scene in CA:TWS, he’s specifically using them to punish Bucky for letting him see that there are still bits of his mind Pierce doesn’t control. It’s not so much that he sees Bucky as a sort of animated toaster, but rather that, like many abusers, he wants Bucky to be something that’s impossible and contradictory, i.e., he wants Bucky to be more than human and less than human at the same time. Of course, all this results in is Bucky twisting himself into pretzels to try to meet Pierce’s unmeetable demands. With regards to the _you’re my friend_ line, while I think that of course Bucky remembering Steve played a major role in helping Bucky to start to shake his psychological shackles (and I’m not just saying this because I love Bucky/Steve ;)) I think the fact that Steve offered him genuine love, affection, and acceptance without being either afraid of him or demanding anything in return was what completely undid Bucky in the helicarrier.
> 
> The box Bucky escorts contains Loki’s staff and the scene takes place not long after the Battle of New York, hence Steve’s picture being in the newspaper.
> 
> On another note, despite all the horrible things that happen in this fic, I actually think Bucky’s story is a fundamentally hopeful one and it’s one that’s incredibly personally meaningful to me. He’s a character who is continuously robbed of agency, but when he finally gets to choose, he not only chooses to be a hero, but he also gets to be one despite having been a fellow Bad Victim. I really hope future movies do his character justice (also, while I’m asking for stuff, MCU!Bucky Cap and Bucky and Sam having awesome and hilarious chemistry and maybe they could both be Cap and then someone could make an ALL CAPS joke and also too that scene in the comics in which Bucky is about to burst into tears over his birthday cake aka the greatest scene in all comics ever and this would be the best film of all time please thank you ;)).
> 
> The _scribble with fangs_ line comes from Gillian Flynn’s _Dark Places_ (you’ve probably realised by now that I have a notebook covered in “Mrs Gillian Flynn” and little hearts; I regret nothing).

**Author's Note:**

> Finally, thank you very much, dear reader, for making it this far, through 27 chapters and 100,000 words. (Of which probably 20% are footnotes. I swear, if you made it through all my embarrassingly verbose author’s notes without losing the will to live, a mere “thank you” is not enough, and I should probably send you some kind of certificate. :)) If you thought the fic was good, I hope it provided you with many hours of entertainment. If you thought it was bad… I also hope it provided you with many hours of entertainment, even if not in the way I meant! However, even if you found that these were 27 chapters of unintentional comedy, you should still go to **dark_roast** ’s [art post](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2515286) and give her lots of kudos and comments, because the art is amazing and gorgeous even if the fic falls short of it. Anyway, please feel free to leave feedback on the fic; due to my work commitments and my health condition I may take a while to get back to you, but rest assured that all comments/kudos/PMs are very much appreciated and loved. Thank you all again!


End file.
